author’s note: this might be the most taboo, wildest shit i've ever written. and it's actually the tamer version of my initial idea....there is no saving me atp, idk.
pairing: roman reigns x black!oc
warnings: smut. vaginal penetration. multiple positions. age gap (17 years). strong themes of infidelity. taboo pairing. angst. themes regarding death, abandonment, and neglect. morally gray characters.
words: 5k
credit: title graphic and solid pink divider by me // photos from pinterest // black and white gif's from google // roman gif by @fabxpunk // mdni and sexual content banners by anitalenia
masterlist + taglist request form
I know I shouldn't be here. Know that I should have never even opened his text. Should have never unblocked him. Should have never sat still, feet planted in the ground as they made the final boarding announcement. It was my out. The perfect opportunity to try to untangle this massive web of lies, deception, and confusion that I've found myself drowning in the past few months.
All I had to do was board the plane. Get on the plane and allow it to carry me as far away from them, from him, as possible. A one way ticket to a fresh, new start. It made sense. It was the most logical thing to do. The right thing to do.
But I couldn't.
It felt like weights sat on top of my chest and feet, anchoring me to the ground, keeping me bound to the seat I sat in for over twenty-five minutes even after that last, final round of boarding. Pressure that remained and throbbed as I reversed the steps taken to heal. To walk away from all of the confounding, stressful, maddening pieces of a puzzle I thought I'd figured out before the game even began.
Truth be told, I'm not even sure what fucking game it even is anymore.
If it's a game at all.
My hands smooth up and down his chest, defined muscles firm against my soft palms. My head is back, ends of my hair—freed from the hair tie when my dark strands were wrapped around his big hand as he fucked my face— brushing the top of my ass. My heavy breasts pressed together and moving in tandem with each slow, sensual gyration of my hips. His stomach is wet and sticky from the trail of my essence that I dragged along his toned body when he easily slid me off his face and onto his erect dick that'd sprung back to life after he'd come all over my chest, and I, all over his face.
His recently dyed beard and pronounced lips reflecting with the remnants of my pussy as patches of his dried cum stick to my dark areolas.
Every so often, our eyes meet, and with every occurrence, that twisting in my stomach tightens. His fingers dig into my hips where he holds me steady as I rock against and on top of him. I do my best to keep my eyes shut—out of sight, out of mind—leaning into the carnal pleasure and bliss that stems from him being buried deep inside my slick wet.
I gasp when Roman's left hand lifts from my hip to the back of my head. My eyes opening just as he yanks on my hair, forcing me to bend down where I meet his mouth for a steamy, sensual kiss.
I hate the way I moan into him. How my movements still as I drown in the inevitability that is Roman Reigns.
He breaks our kiss, minty breath fanning my face as he nips on my bottom lip. "Did I tell you to stop?" My eyes flutter once more as he tightens his fist in my hair, voice gruff. "Keep riding me, sweetheart."
For someone who's never done well with people telling me what to do, the inner feminist in me mourns at the ease in which I obey. Easing back into the motion of grinding up and down, back and forth, and slow circles. All the while he thrusts his tongue back into my mouth, allowing me to taste myself as his hand squeezes at my breast.
Rough pad of his thumb grazing over my puckered nipples as I force myself to ignore the burning in my thighs and growing tension in my legs. I'm not sure how long he's had me on top, but I also know it's better for me to remain in charge vs him.
The minute he gets me on my back, side, or stomach, it's a wrap. Despite months of him beating my shit the fuck up, I still struggle with recovery. Still have to ignore the borderline painful throbbing between my legs and the tiny hiss that leaves my mouth every time he uses the rag to clean up the mess he's made of me.
A few days out from Main Eventing his 11th WrestleMania would make most think he'd be taking it easy, be focused on only traditional forms of training. But that's not Roman Reigns.
At least not who he is with me.
Not even my ex who seemed to want to fuck for breakfast, lunch, and dinner had as high a sex drive as the man almost 17 years my senior who, nine times out of ten, makes me tapout quicker than any man ever has.
It's fucking insane.
His hand locked in my hair finally releases to glide down my slick back, squeezing, slapping, and jiggling my ass before he starts to lazily guide me up and down. My own hands cage the side of his head as we continue to tongue each other down when he starts fucking up into me again.
"Mmmm, so good."
"Yeah?"
I nod with a ridiculous and embarrassing amount of vigor that's rivaled only by the pace in which he's fucking me. Or I'm fucking him. Us fucking each other.
But my valiant efforts must fall short because one minute we're grinding against each other, slick body to body, and the next, my cheek is pressed into the mattress, my round ass hoisted up in the air and my body nothing more than a rag doll from the intense, deep, back-to-back backshots he's giving me.
"F—f—-fuck, R—r—r—"
"What took you so long to get here?"
My brows cave together as my hands continue to fist at the sheets, the sound of his heavy balls slapping against my dripping cunt distracting to the point where I leave his strange, weirdly timed question unanswered.
Big mistake.
The sting from slapping my ass makes me jump, the impact strong enough to the point where I'm certain that with the lights on, you can clearly see the outline of his big ass hand print.
But Roman is equally caring as he can be cruel, leaning over and using that same hand to gently knead my ass as he continues to dig me out. "I asked you a question, Jaleila." My eyes shut once more as he pushes my hair to the side, warm lips grazing the back of my neck. "Been waiting for you…"
That twisting in my stomach intensifies once more. He shouldn't be saying things like that. He shouldn't have been waiting for me in the first place. If there was anyone he should have flown out early to keep him company over the next several days while he works heavily to promote Mania, it should be Shayna.
It should be his wife.
It should be his wife and kids.
Not me.
And yet…
That doesn't mean, however, I can't at least try to retain some of my dignity. Even as he grinds his pelvis against my ass, forever using that big ass dick of his to make me putty. "Wasn't—fuck—wasn't sure if I wanted to—to come."
His deep chuckle is nestled in between the consistent, loud sound of skin slapping skin. "You always come for me, Leila." I hate how I don't hate the way he autonomously decided to start using my nickname one day without permission or request. I especially hate how I've never corrected him on it, either. "Where else were you gonna go?"
Home. I was going to go home. The place I should have never left in the first place.
Would have saved myself a shit ton of stress.
And heartache.
Or heartbreak.
"Naw…" My hands glide down the bed, the crumpled, damp sheets soft against my palms but not nearly as soft as the sensation of his full lips along the shell of my ear. "Mine." He's practically sprawled on top of me at this rate, pace sporadic and rushed, indication of the burning desire to find his release. I can feel it in how he forces my head up and to the side just enough for him to kiss me once more. Can taste his need and desperation.
It's nothing more than a mirror of my own.
He finishes inside of me, ropes of cum dripping from my swollen, tender pussy. Smeared all over his cock, the bed, and sheets that need to be burned at this point. I shouldn't let him. Feel guilty about it as he leaves to grab a towel to at least clean up some of our mess. Mentally berate myself for not making him pull out, but then I remember.
It wouldn't have made a difference.
But as amazing as the sex is, as he feels, it doesn't stop the way my brain swirls with ideas and thoughts that betray.
What if I stayed?
What if we could make it work?
What if—
Nothing but dead ends to the same outcome that was always determined from the moment I landed at Miami International with a smile on my face and malice in my heart. This was all so much easier from the outside looking in. Seemed so much simpler when I decided to accept the most unexpected offer from the least expected person.
I can still recall the moment I answered the phone, scowl on my face as I worked to fix dinner even though I wanted nothing more than to jump in bed and bury myself under the blankets until my irksome alarm reminded me that work isn't just a once a week thing. It's a 5x a week thing.
The way I almost hung up the phone when she said her name. I thought it was some sort of joke only to realize I'm not nearly important enough for anyone to want to prank me. I still don't know how she got my number. We hadn't spoken in years. She stopped sending Christmas cards before I even graduated high school. We were virtual strangers.
Perhaps it should have stayed that way. Perhaps I should have just cussed her out, told her to never contact me again, blocked her, and moved on with my life. I've spent so long without her that the "loss" would be nothing more than a continuation of the norm.
But I didn't.
I told her I'd think about it when she suggested I come spend some time with her so we could "bond" and "catch up." I almost threw up the minute it left her mouth, the delivery overtly sugary and deceptively sweet, a voice synonymous to nails on a chalkboard. Disingenuous. The type we use during the interview and drop when we land the job. A performance. It felt like she was auditioning for something.
For me.
And I couldn't understand why, just how I couldn't understand why I didn't immediately shut her down.
Why I twisted and turned in bed that night until I leaned over to hit the lamp on my nightstand. Grabbed my iPad with the cracked screen and bad camera to google what I hadn't in years. Nothing had changed outside of additional photos, videos, and a People Magazine article that made my jaw dropped and suddenly turned a boring, lazy scanning into an unexpected plot twist.
WWE Superstar Roman Reigns and wife call off divorce.
I read it from line to line, all the way down to the comments that led me to deep dive, discovering information that wasn't available when I'd last looked her up a few years prior. Learned that despite her perfectly curated Instagram page which boasted overtly edited photos of her and her equally perfect little family was nothing more than a facade.
That I was once again reminded things aren't always what they seem.
It was also in that moment I started to put together the pieces that would eventually become my master plan. The reason I called her the next morning and accepted the offer. Not to bond. Not to catch up. Not to connect.
But to kickstart the one and only opportunity to do what I'd never thought I'd be able to do.
To hurt her the way she hurt me.
To ruin and fuck with her mental the way she messed with mine.
My perfect "cousin" who spent her days doing hot yoga with her girlfriends, making cooking videos for her Instagram page that boasted half a million followers, and showcasing her beautiful children and handsome husband. It was all perfectly and intentionally curated to depict and convey the life she'd worked so hard to achieve, no matter who was hurt and discarded along the way.
I would know.
No one was hurt and cast aside like trash that served no purpose more than me. Because I didn't.
She did away with me.
She left.
It's been a recurring theme of my life.
Because Shayna has only ever cared about things and people so long as they're useful to her. If it or you don't benefit or fit into the cookie cutter life she's finessed for herself, then she dismisses and flicks you away like that pesky gnat that buzzes in your ear, driving you mad until you silence it for good.
And once you're silent, you no longer exist in her world.
Therein lies the privilege of it all. The people who hurt and traumatize go on and live their lives carefree without the scars, pain, and trauma left behind in the wake of their crimes.
They flourish while you drown.
And I've been grasping for life vests for as far back as I can remember.
"I got a busy day tomorrow so you'll have to keep yourself occupied until I'm done." His deep voice alerts me to the fact that he's now lying on the bed next to me, on his back, one hand behind his head as he scrolls on his phone with his left.
I'm still on my stomach, my own arms underneath the pillow that my left cheek is pressed into. I stare at him, the lighting of a city that never sleeps reflected off his side profile and phone in his hand illuminating his face and hazel specks in his eyes. I don't realize that I'm reaching out, stroking his beard, still damp and glistening from the evidence of our transgressions, until it's too late. "We're in the city of sin, aren't we?" His eyes temporarily flick over to me, a small smirk on his face. "I think I'll find something to do." A beat. "Or someone."
The corners of my mouth lift into a small smile as something dark flashes in his gaze.
"Jaleila…."
"Relax, big boy." I roll my eyes, body moving on its own accord as I close the uncomfortable gap between us. Head on his shoulder, arm across his stomach, my right leg hiked over his, the warmth of his now flaccid penis brushing against my inner thigh. I chuckle, kissing his shoulder. He tugs me into him, tapping the top of my ass and kissing my temple. My eyes shut, voice softening as the exhaustion from all our festivities starts to catch up to me. "You've ruined that for me with anyone else, I fear…."
He's ruined a lot of things for me, actually.
It's fucked up.
All of it.
This wasn't supposed to happen. None of it. I had the perfect plan. Simple but effective.
Come. Destroy. Leave.
In that order and with very specific objectives, but where we are now compared to where I thought I'd be couldn't be anymore different.
I shouldn't be laying up with this man. Not like this. The goal always was to fuck him, to see if those whispers and rumors on gossip forums about his "wandering eye" being one of the main reasons for Shayna filing for divorce were true.
They were.
And despite my knowing that he truly has no idea how sick, twisted all of this is and how much of a fucking pathological liar his wife is, it didn't change the fact that I almost hated him as much as I hate her. This man I'd never met prior to a few months ago but was the sole reason my life ended up on a trajectory that only led to hurt, rejection, and dysfunction.
From the clips I'd pulled up of him online, interviews of him pompous and cocky, I expected to have to work hard to swallow my pride and butter up an arrogant egomaniac. To set aside my own reservations to get shit done.
I was wrong.
For a man who plays a narcissist disgustingly well, I'm not sure I've ever met someone so kind. He has his moments, sure. I've seen them firsthand, but when the cameras all go away, and it's just him. Him and his kids, especially, he's a completely different person. Kind, thoughtful, charismatic, funny in that dad humor sort of way. It's hard to get a read on him at first because he's initially and naturally on the introverted side of the spectrum, the complete opposite of my extroverted soul. But once he gets to talking, there's no stopping him.
His family means everything to him, and I can see why his kids seem to adore him so much.
He's a good dad, and I believe once upon a time he was also a good husband. Perhaps fame and success changed him, too. In a different way it did his wife who seems almost obsessed with maintaining a "perfect" image.
Maybe it made him realize settling down so young before he truly had time to explore the playing field was a mistake. He's not the first, and he won't be the last.
Just like I probably won't be the last.
I only planned to fuck him once. That was all that was needed to guarantee a front row seat to view the horrified look on her face when I told her, in graphic detail, how I'd fucked her husband in their bed. The overwhelming satisfaction that would forever satisfy me at seeing her hurt. Seeing her pain and knowing that I caused it.
The ability to close up a stinging chapter of my life that could only be achieved by ruining hers.
I was wrong.
I was wrong about everything.
Roman isn't an ugly man at all, so the attraction component of things was never a concern. I immediately thought him someone I'd fuck in a heartbeat just from the first photo I saw of him on Google a years back. What I didn't realize, however, is that physical and sexual attraction would end up being the least of things I've grown to feel about and towards this man.
I feel for him in a way I've never felt about anyone before. Desire his presence and attention in ways that scare me. I don't have to force. I just am. He's the easiest person I've ever had the pleasure of talking to, hence why pillow talk between us has been the norm since the first time we fucked.
And the sex….
Far too intimate for someone I hated with a fiery passion for so many years.
Almost as much as I hate her.
Or did.
Because she's yet another character who's undergone edits and revisions I didn't think were possible.
I'm 100% certain her being exactly as awful as I remember, believed her to be, would resulted in me not laying up on this man as he strokes my back and talks with me about his thoughts and concerns towards his career that's nearing its final run.
It would have fueled my dedication to sticking to the plan.
But she's not awful. Hasn't been. She's goal driven and image obsessed, but she also has asked genuine questions about me, spent time with me that's always felt wanted instead of forced. Cracked jokes and encouraged me to actually utilize my business degree and go for the jewelry business I've always wanted to open but never found the means or way to for XYZ reason.
Even hinted she'd invest.
That's not something a cold, heartless bitch would do.
Yet another example of me being confused and conflicted as fuck. For every not so great to horrible thing I know or believe about her, there's an antithesis. And for him, I can't seem to even find a fucking vice. Not one that'll stick.
He's a cheater?
Well, so are most men, and even so, what does that make me?
She's a liar? Again, pot meet kettle.
Both adjectives swarm around in my head as we go for round who knows what, this time with him on top, in between my legs. Missionary. That position that's supposed to be reserved for lovers, and in the physical sense, we are.
For him, at least. For me, it's physical and beyond. I love this man. I'm in love with this man, and I shouldn't be. I can't be.
It's not only wrong on a variety of levels, but it's a hopeless cause. A dead end to nothing and nowhere. He's married, and that's not changing. Shayna is never going to leave him. I still don't know what made her file for divorce only to change her mind, nor is it really any of my business, but if even after multiple affairs, filing, and dismissal, she's still not going anywhere….she never will.
And perhaps he was the one who fought for them to stay together. Unlikely. He wouldn't be fucking me like this, flying me out to spend the week in Vegas with him while she and the kids are back home, if he truly wanted to make his marriage work. They live as two strangers who stay together for the sake of image and family. Must believe that together is better for the kids.
I honestly haven't a fucking clue how I've allowed things to get this far. One minute I was plotting and scheming, the next I was smiling and laughing and loving. None of the latter being forced or disingenuous. I don't have to make anything be something it's not because it just is.
Organic and real.
What I feel for Roman is real. But it was all built upon a mountain of lies that began not with my arrival to Miami, but my arrival into the world.
Over 20 years ago
The day that I'll never forget and the one Shayna probably doesn't even remember. Or perhaps she does and just doesn't care.
My thoughts take on a darker, heavier turn as we lay in bed once more, hours later, the sound of his soft snoring in my ear as his arm anchors around my body, my back into his chest. He sleeps. I spiral.
The day where both titles and dynamics shifted. Where visits became more spread out until ending altogether. Phone calls that went unanswered. Hugs and kisses to my forehead never felt again. My questions always met with kind smiles and sweet words betrayed by the meaning of those words. I eventually stopped asking, stopped sitting on the sofa, looking out the window, waiting to see her pull up.
Later on, I would learn the hard way that Shayna met someone while away at college. Someone who she decided she wanted to do life with. That was a much better option than whoever my sperm donor was. That she saw as her chance to a better, different life.
One that didn't include me.
I accepted what I couldn't fully grasp but understood enough to be filled with an insurmountable amount of grief for such a young child. Grief that would become a recurring theme of my life.
That catapulted one Saturday morning when I woke up and wasn't immediately hit with the smell of my grandma's favorite pancakes but instead found her dead on the bathroom floor with a toothbrush in her mouth.
Brain aneurysm.
I was seven.
Shayna never even said a word to me at the funeral.
Fast forward four years later, living with my great grandma, the sweetest, kindest woman I'd ever met. Getting off the bus and walking into the house that was far too quiet around the time she was always watching reruns of her favorite judge shows.
A silence that made sense once I made my way to her room and found her still in the bed. Sleeping. Eternally.
Heart attack.
I was 11.
Shayna didn't even come to the funeral.
Sustainability, however, came in the form of the grandfather I never knew and only met because no one wanted me, and it was either he take custody of me or I'd become a ward of the state. Thus, his reluctant acceptance.
He was a tall, big, burly man with a gray goatee, bald head, and a cane he really should have used more often than he did. Lived out in the middle of nowhere and was the textbook definition of that old, cranky neighborhood all the kids were afraid of.
I wasn't.
No, I quickly learned that I inherited my sassy and bold personality not just from life that'd forced me to grow up much sooner than anyone should but the grandparent who would end up becoming my best friend and favorite person.
As much as we bickered and argued, he was always the person who supported me the most. Showed up at all my events. Even signed an AMA to leave the hospital shortly after a nasty fall to see me walk across the stage at my college graduation.
"I'm proud of you, kid." He whispered, holding me tight as I cried silently into his chest, soaking up the love and support.
Three months later, he passed away.
And two years later, I'm still not over it. Still haven't decided what to do with his land or the almost seven figure inheritance from his life insurance policy that he left me.
Only me.
For two years, I've been in a state of limbo. Living in a crappy apartment, working as a bottle girl, trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my life.
At twenty four, I felt absolutely lost.
So when I randomly received Shayna's call and offer, I saw it as a way to right the many wrongs that'd been done to me and then try to figure out what to do and where to go from there.
But I feel even more lost now than I did then.
Until I don't.
Because it's not until days later, as I'm standing in the midst of a roaring crowd filled with thunderous applause and three letter chants, and watching them, that I understand. I watch how he greets them. First his sons, then his daughter, and finally her. See the wholesome interaction that finally forces to accept what I've refused to for far too long.
That that's his family. It's Shayna's family. That is the family that she chose. Lyla, kind and empathetic, the daughter that they'd conceived while they were still in college. The one she chose to acknowledge.
And keep.
Their twin sons, River and Rowan, almost ten and the sweetest, funniest set of kids I'v ever met.
That was the family.
Not me.
And certainly not the child in my stomach they could never find out about.
Regardless of how it all came to be, the manipulation and strings pulled that resulted in Shayna getting her happy ending, that's exactly what she'd found.
I couldn't ruin that. I can't. No matter how much my chest hurts and eyes water when he casts a quick glance to me before turning to climb back in the ring to celebrate his win. A quick look away and sniffle right as I see the boys lift their fingers to the sky to acknowledge him.
It's then that I know exactly what I need to do.
What I should have done a long time ago.
I have to leave.
There is no other option. The web of lies I've cast are far too great to walk back. There is no fixing what I've done. The truth will only hurt, only destroy, only ruin.
My feelings towards Shayna are still confusing and mixed, but there's no denying the love I've developed for the kids.
For Roman.
And for them, because of them, I can't.
I might have come out here a destroyer, but I hope to leave as a peace offering. It's the best outcome that can be found in any of this.
My sins are too great and unforgivable.
But even though Shayna started this, I can finish it. I can break the cycle.
I have to.
Not to mention…I'd only be bringing this child into another generation of dysfunction, thus doing the very same thing that I've hated Shayna for all these years.
It's a heartbreaking, devastating revelation, too. To see how even without her presence and role in my life, for majority of it at least, I'm nothing more than a reflection of her.
klaus mikaelson tumblr are we ALIVE or am i just a ghost haunting my childhood hotties
blink twice. like once. scream into the void. something.
because i am this close 🤏 to posting a multi-part klaus mikaelson fanfic series, and i need to know if anyone is still out there before i emotionally commit and start dropping chapters at 2am like it’s 2014 again.
this is a serious inquiry (it is not serious at all):
do we still read klaus fic?
do we still thirst over emotionally unavailable immortal men with trauma?
do we still follow long, angsty, slow-burn series that WILL hurt us?
or will i simply be whispering “always and forever” into the abyss?
about the fic:
klaus-centric (obviously)
set in the The Vampire Diaries / The Originals universe
multi-part because i don’t know how to be normal
angsty, romantic, dramatic, emotionally unwell
written with love, chaos, and unresolved mikaelson trauma
reimagined from a fanfic i wrote as a teenager TEN years ago, titled Battles, which i accidentally deleted off wattpad
based on ✨ vibes ✨ and memory ✨ so pls bear with me while i resurrect my own lore
if you are:
still here. still feral. still emotionally attached to klaus mikaelson.
LIKE. REBLOG. COMMENT. POSSESS ME.
i need a sign from the universe before i press post.
—
tags because tumblr tags are basically summoning circles. pls let me know if i should add any
♡ — 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 | ⇢ There’s a thin line between love and hate. If only the damn thing wasn’t so hard to see sometimes. (read part one HERE)
♡ — 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 | ⇢ 18+ ONLY || MDNI || ONESHOT — angst and smut.
♡ — 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 | ⇢ 8k+
♡ — 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 | ⇢ so so sorry for delay in posting this!!! it's literally been done all this time. i just suck. that's all. inspired by this post from @shugamama 💖
♡ — 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐎 | ❝fire on fire❞ by sam smith (if you wanna see/listen to the playlist i made while writing it, because i’m an extra ass bitch, click here)
♡ — 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓 ⇢ graphics and dividers made by me.
March 4th, 2021
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I look like the type of man to kid?”
My eyes gloss over him as he sits on the sofa opposite mine, legs spread, thighs stretching against the dark grey sweats, similair to how his arms fight against another two sizes too small shirt. Or, maybe it’s just him.
Maybe he’s just too big.
Just like his dick.
“Clear eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t lose,” I say while sitting up to sit on my knees, pushing back frizzy curls behind my ears. But, he continues to look at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language, and maybe I am. “You mean to tell me you played football almost your whole life and you’ve never seen Friday Night Lights?”
“The movie?”
“No. The show.”
“There was a show?”
I reach for the decorative pillow and allow it to swallow my loud ass groan, my voice muffled as I insult, “you have no culture.”
Dropping said pillow allows me to see the moment he rolls his eyes. “You were watching it. I was living it.”
Fair.
But, again, I can’t give him any ammunition.
“Well, I’m gonna make you watch it.”
He frowns. “What?”
“You heard me.” I shift once again on the sofa, sitting so that my legs are crossed, snatching my phone off the nice ass coffee table of his hotel suite. “It’s on Netflix.”
“I don’t care.”
Completely ignoring him, I continue to explain just why he should and is going to watch said show. “I think you’d like it. Just know Julie never gets better. Always an insufferable bitch. The Becky hate is 100% unnecessary, and Tyra and Tim? Spirit animals.”
Though my focus is on my phone as I open up my Netflix to double check it’s still there, as those sneaky bastards love to take stuff off in the middle of the night, I can feel his continued, uninterested gaze on me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You will once you watch it.”
“I’m not—”
“What else are we gonna do when we’re stuck on your nice ass but boring ass bus for hours?”
I will say that being on the road with him for almost a month now has taught me a lot. Informed mr of my ignorance in some areas, like how this shit is hard. We’re never in one place for too long, always on the go to the next thing. It’s like constantly and always being on. Including the man across from me.
I must say, while I still find him insufferable and struggle with daily (hourly) homicidal urges at it pertains to him, I can admit he takes great pride in what he does, often disappearing or staying in his locker room either alone or with the Wise Man as he prepares for promos and matches.
And the matches.
I’ll also be the first to admit I’ve always seen this wrestling shit as nothing but violent reality TV, a fabrication and depiction of the scripted and planned, and maybe it is, to a certain extent. But, there’s nothing fake about the sometimes nasty bruises, hematomas, and scars I’ve seen him walk out of the ring with following those violent encounters.
That shit hurts, and there’s nothing that can be scripted or fake about that.
It’s in thinking about said memories of him groaning loudly as he ices his sore body that makes me ask.
“What made you go into wrestling anyways?” I make a clicking sound with my teeth, shrugging while closing up the app. “I mean, if you played football for most of your life, why pivot?”
Except the minute I lift my head to look over at him, the confused, lost demeanor is traded for something else, another new discovery but also not. He looks irritated, yes, but….but something else.
Bothered.
He looks….bothered.
He doesn’t say anything else after that, and as someone who hates being ignored, it has me tempted to call him out on the shit. But, something….something tells me not to.
Something….something tells me that I’ve hit a nerve.
But, how?
More importantly, what?
———————
March 9th, 2021
I find out a few days later.
Not intentional and not even from him, but his cousin. A conversation between us as Roman rested in the back, sleeping in longer than he typically does. Something I’ve noticed in my time spent on the road with him happens more than I initially realized or picked up on. The mornings where it takes him longer to get out of bed, the way he drags his feet, seems like he’s fighting for his life to make it to the ring on Friday nights and house shows. How he almost taps out the minute we make it back on the bus or in the hotel room.
I chalked it up to the fact that just because he looks like a Norse or Greek God doesn’t mean that he is one.
And, I was right.
But, it’s more than that.
I can immediately tell when Jey accidentally lets it slip that he just assumed I knew. Not sure why. That quick Google search and stalking of his Wiki article didn’t mention it, and if Wiki doesn’t have it, it must not be true.
He’s not open with it, and I can understand why. Truth be told, it’s no one’s damn business.
Not even mine.
Which is why I hate knowing and never let him know that I know. Do my best to remain the same, continuing to fight urges to smother him in his sleep most nights. But, I can’t act like it doesn’t change how I see him. Doesn’t change my perception of him as being this arrogant, unfeeling asshole, and maybe some parts of that are true.
Maybe it’s all true.
But, maybe it’s for good reason, too.
Sometimes, we are not the ones who take life by the reins. Sometimes, we are simply byproducts. I would know that better than anyone.
There’s a sense of admiration almost, a strain of that maybe being a better term. It feels weird calling what I feel towards him—outside of the disdain—my being impressed. That shouldn’t be something to be impressed by, because to me, there are positive connotations to the word impressed. And, there’s nothing positive about what he’s dealt with. Twice now. And, even more, something he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life.
Something that, I’m pretty sure, contributed to, if not was the sole reason that his football career ended. The section in his Wikipedia didn’t give much information on that part of his life, just that it was over before it could really start post college.
I think I now know why.
Know why he shut down the day he did when I asked about it, completely ignorant and unaware of the probably painful emotions attached to that question. To a past that stays, lingers, never to fully leave, always beside you, ready and waiting to infiltrate. To interfere.
Again, in some ways, I can understand.
Can relate.
My now knowing also changes up some of my conversations with my family. Less dragging and expressions of the great bodily harm I always wished on him when I spoke to my twin. Almost zero complaints when I check in with my dad. Not that I’d been completely honest about my unhappiness in the first place.
He’s already worried enough about me over the years.
No need to keep adding onto that.
I just know that later that week when we’re walking out after the show and he does the usual grab of my hand before the door opens and we’re bombarded with flashing lights and the group of fans who stay afterwards for the chance of an impromptu meet and greet, I don’t feel that usual need to shove him away.
I just tighten my hand around his.
———————
March 9th, 2021
“You’re nothing like your Instagram page.” Adding more items to the cart for Fido is briefly paused as I look not across the room where the sofa remains empty but up and to the right. To the man whose big body I’m leaned against, my legs stretched across the sofa, his right arm propped across the top of the sofa.
I’m not sure when exactly we started sitting so close to each other outside of forced interactions, but….ya know, I’m just going with it.
Until I’m not.
“What?”
His answer is to share his screen with me, that annoying ass, bright ass iPhone screen briefly blinding me, my wide rimmed glasses protecting my eyes.
I bring my hand to cover my face, scowling and muttering, “turn the brightness down, Caesar.”
A deep chuckle as he shifts the phone, following my direction and instead of showcasing, hands it to me.
I immediately drop my phone onto my lap, once again looking over at him, this time with narrowed eyes. “How the hell did you find my Instagram, you bodybuilder looking ass stalker?”
He's quick to snatch his phone back, as he sucks his teeth. “You DM’d me first, Smartass. Remember?”
Oh.
That….that would be correct.
“Allegedly.”
He shakes his head, elaborating on his initial address, the TV across from us playing whatever. I don’t think either of us have paid much attention. No desire, really. It’s been a long day, including a couple promos and a particularly longer match than normal for him.
I know he’s gotta be tired, which is why I’m partially curious why he’s not in bed instead of sitting here with me as I buy more stuff for Fido and have it shipped to my house.
My poor dad is gonna have a room full of packages for me when I get back home.
“Seriously. You act…..different on there.”
It’s an understandable description. Accurate, too. “Yeah, well, as you can see, I don’t have a lot of followers, and my page is private, so….” I start to ask him just how the hell he became one of those less than 100 followers, cause I damn sure don’t remember approving him, but I guess that’s not really relevant at this moment in time. “I like makeup and….beauty and shit.”
His expression is one of surprise. “Really?”
Nodding and somehow leaning more into him, toying with the hem of my shirt accompanies more uncharacteristic, below the surface level sharing. “It’s just….sharing that with the masses is….weird to me. Like, I can do it on there. Fine. Sure. Because it’s a controlled setting, but trying to do more than that….no.”
“You mean like making it into a career?”
I nod, chuckling quietly. “Content creating is what the kids call it these days. I think.”
Whatever it is, just the thought of it is terrifying as fuck. My Instagram page, as he pointed out, consists mostly of selfies that show off makeup looks I’ve done on myself, my sisters, and like….the three friends I actually have. But, it’s mostly just me. Happy. Smiling. Even a little transition or two. And, that’s okay, because I know who’s watching and who has access to watch. To see that other side of me, I suppose.
The side that….that doesn’t have to worry about what people think of her. That doesn’t care what people think.
Because quiet as it’s kept…..as much as I do hate a lot of people, there’s something else there.
A lot, actually.
“Well, you should do it, then.”
Ahh, the naivety of the rich and famous. “You make it sound so easy.” And, maybe some aspects of it aren’t the hardest, but the most important parts, for me, are just that. Thee hardest. “Plus, I’ll fuck around and end up catching federal charges for making terroristic threats after cussing people out in the comments.”
Granted, that’s assuming I get any comments in the first place.
“Yeah, well, you’d have to work on your fucking anger management problem first.”
A gasp as I sit up, now on my knees, glaring. “First of all, only the third therapist I made quit as a kid said I had anger problems. The other two were on my side.”
“They were probably scared of you.”
“I may have issued a threat or two.” They deserved it though. Calling me out and shit like that. Highlighting and pointing out the layers behind my anger. So uncalled for. “And, you’re one to talk, you literally bully people for a living. On and off screen.”
“Yup.”
“And, it doesn’t bother you?”
He rolls his neck, shrugging and dismissing. “Nope.”
“Men.” I scoff, hand dropping to my stomach as my face morphs into something that must give away the way I feel.
He flicks his gaze over me, warm eyes remaining on my stomach longer than usual. “Is it….”
A nod and confirmation. “Nausea. It’s normal for this trimester though. Hopefully it lets up soon, cause the shit ain’t it.” I’m sure it could always be worse though. Ravenna was damn near bedridden at one point with all her pregnancies. Her morning sickness was just that bad. So far, I just have the usual and normal amount of symptoms.
Hopefully it stays that way.
“You’re two months now, right?”
Rubbing my stomach is ceased in favor of looking up at him.
He’s keeping up with that?
“Uhhh,” I have to shake my head, reorienting myself for that curveball he just threw. “Yeah, as of—”
“Yesterday,” he finishes.
Fuck.
“You started thinking of names yet?”
And the hits keep coming.
I have. Truth be told, I’ve had the names picked out for my kids since I was twenty five. Two. No more than that. I’m not tryna be like my sister. After Fido 2, they can scoop this ovary, uterus, and everything else out of me.
“Yes.” It’s a quiet answer, much too quiet for my liking. Gives too much away. Like, the fact he’s got me sitting here confused as all outdoors, wondering where these questions are even coming from. Why they’re coming in the first place.
And, why I’m waiting for him to ask me to elaborate. To share.
He doesn’t.
But, that’s not even the weirdest part.
No….that would be the fact that I….I kinda wanted him to.
March 17th, 2021
I should be used to it. It’s the same thing every year. Has been for almost thirty years now, and yet, every time it rolls around, I feel it. The increased snippiness of my replies, curt answers to what are otherwise normal questions. The desire to be alone.
I don’t plan to accompany Roman to the show this Friday. It’ll be easy enough to makeup some excuse about not feeling well. Morning sickness, which might not be a lie, as it’s been kicking my ass a bit the past two weeks.
But, in a weird sort of way, I welcome it. It reminds me that Fido is still in there. Still going and growing strong.
Hasn’t left.
Unlike her.
“Why do you wanna do this anyway?”
It’s asked of me a few hours later as we sit on his tour bus, traveling to insert any name place, the TV playing across from us. Season 1, Episode 13 of Friday Night Lights.
“Do what?” I ask, sticking my big ass spoon in the carton of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, something that I’m about to run out of and make a mental note to remind him I’m gonna need to stock up on again soon.
“Have the baby.”
I look over at him, once again across from me, undivided attention on me as I sit, cross legged, one his shirts draped over my body, slipping off my right shoulder. The cotton of my sweats absorbing the chilliness of the carton in hand.
And, I just look at him.
It’s a….question.
One that, one some level, I want to ignore. But, I also want to cuss at him for even asking and in that same breath understand why he would want to know.
Has some level of right to know.
All of that is true, sure, but it doesn’t explain just why I answer the way I do.
“I—uhhh, I’ve never really been good at much.” The focus is back on the carton, spoon swirling atop the still hardened but gradually softening layer. “Never higher than a B or C student. Constantly had my dad being called to the office in elementary school, almost flunked out of middle school, and I still have no idea how I finished high school. But, I did. And, I guess that’s why I tried to give college a try, though I didn’t make it past the first semester before I dropped out.” I shrug, small, inauthentic smile on my face. “But, my sisters? Especially Ravenna, my twin. She was always good at everything. There’s nothing she ever did she wasn’t good at. Cheer captain. Student Body President. Class president. You name it, she was it. Meanwhile I failed at every sport, hobby, and anything else you can think of.” The most humorless smile as I look to the left of me, met with the darkness of the bus where the low lighting near us doesn’t reach.
A darkness that mimics what I feel in approach of the next topic that, for the life of me, I don’t know why I’m sharing.
“Today makes fifteen years since I last saw my mom.” A whispered confession, memories flooding in. The constant promises to do better, to get better accompanied by glassy eyes and slurred speech. Sometimes with tears that outweighed my own. Promise after promise. Missed visit after missed visit. The best fucking day ever followed by weeks of radio silence. Until finally, at age fourteen, I told her, if she couldn’t stay, I didn’t want her to come.
That was the last time we spoke.
“She uh—she was never really there for me and my sister, ya know?” Kiara, my older half-sister, never suffered or had the experiences my twin and I did. Her mother passed away during childbirth. I think it’s why we’ve never had the closest relationship. She doesn’t understand why I act as though my mom is dead when she’d give anything for hers not to be. The classic case of which is worst.
To have loved and lost. Or, to have never loved at all.
I still don’t have the answer.
“And, I always….always said if there was one thing I was going to do, it’s be a mom. Be the best mom ever and give my kid what I never got.” I flick at the letters on the carton, cracking a small, wry smile. “Not even in that weird I’m gonna use my child to heal me sort of way. Just…giving a child what I never got.” The swallow accompanied by the crack in my voice is all I need to know to wipe at my eyes as I nod to myself. “Like, I said, I’m not good at a lot of things. But, this? This, I…..I know I can do. I know I can be.”
I’ve read every parenting book, watched all the movies, worked my ass off since dropping out of college and completing beauty school yet doing nothing with it, all while saving up every penny. I have a stable job that I’ve held for the past five years. Have a nice savings account. Enough for at least a years worth of mortgage payments while still retaining a decent rainy day fund even after the fact.
I have everything I need to give my baby everything I never got from a maternal standpoint. My dad is my everything, but he could never give me everything a mom could. He stuck around and broke his back to take care of us, and I could never repay him for all he’s done and means to me.
Cause, at the end of the day, he stayed.
She left.
That’s why when I told her what I did that day, and day by day, week by week, month by month that passed with no sign of her, I made myself a promise.
Promised that I would never allow myself to get close to anyone else, because at the end of the day, people always leave.
That’s just the way it is.
But, not me. Not with my baby.
I’ll always be there for my kid.
Always.
—————————
March 22nd, 2021
It seems like I need to stop being so surprised every time something unexpected happens. At least when it comes to him.
Roman.
But, I’m having a hard time not being surprised.
I’m….I’m actually having a hard time with a couple of other things, but that’s neither here nor there.
Granted, I think anyone would be in my situation with the latest development.
His request.
The request to accompany me to my latest OB-GYN appointment.
The request I said yes to.
A knock on the door pulls me from my thoughts as I’m met with the smiling face of the same lady doctor I’ve had since I was fifteen, pimple faced, and terrified at the thought of anyone seeing my vagina for the first time.
Oh, how things change.
Except, her attention soon shifts from where I lay on the bed, shirt pulled up to expose my still-not-showing stomach to the large ass man besides me.
Her mouth forms into the shape of the same word that eventually leaves her mouth. “Oh.”
“He’s the Uber driver.”
“Ravina.”
“He’s demanding a $50 tip. Call for help.”
Dr. Willis chuckles, closing the door behind her, tablet to her chest. “Some things never change, huh, kiddo?”
Roman ignores me, offering his hand and name as they exchange pleasantries. If she knows who he is, which she probably does, she’s the perfect actress, continuing on as she normally wound, asking the normal questions abut symptoms, developments, so and so forth. It’s fine. The appointment proceeds as normal, until it doesn’t, because this fucking man next to me just has to chime in.
“That is so not true.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose as my eyes temporarily shift to his arms. I swear his ass gets bigger and bigger every day. “That’s literally what you said, Ravina.”
“And now you’re mansplaining me?”
Pet Peeve #51
Mansplaining
“What the fuck are you even talking about?”
“Don’t use that language in front of my lady doctor, you fucking indignant.” I sit up on my elbows, eyes narrowed on the man that probably has my blood pressure skyrocketing with each irritating ass thing that comes out of his irritating ass mouth. “That is your problem. You don’t listen.”
At that, he looks at me, eyes slightly widened, gesturing to himself. “I don’t listen? You’re like a goddamn child every time someone says something you don’t agree with.”
“Well, they, and by they, I mean you, should stop saying things I don’t agree with!” It’s really that simple. “Besides, I am with child, so I have an—”
I stop, and so does he, both of our attentions no longer focused on each other in this game of who can piss off each other more and to my stomach where Dr. Willis managed to not only place the gel but to maneuver the transducer around.
Which leads our gazes to the other thing.
The screen.
A screen that shows shades of gray. Dark and hard to make out. A blob in many ways. But, it’s not the blob that has my attention—our attention—it’s the sound.
My chest is tight, mouth suddenly dry, the words hard to string together. Words that he manages, though I don’t recall hearing him ever sound so….quiet.
“Is…..is that…..”
She nods, locs moving from the subtle motion, warm smile on her face as she looks between the two of us. “That would be your baby’s heartbeat.”
—————
April 2nd, 2021
Something….something has changed.
With myself. With him.
With us. Ever since we heard it, heard our baby’s heartbeat for the first time, there’s been this….thing between us.
I don’t know what it is. Don’t even know how to begin to describe it even if I wanted to. I just know I feel it. I also know what I don’t feel.
I can’t remember the last time we had a serious argument, and Lord knows those things happened damn near every day when I first joined him on the road. We talk more than we already do, which is saying something considering I hadn’t even realized just how much we do talk. He’s stayed at the top of my recent messages and phone calls the past few weeks, especially since then.
Watching him from behind the scenes is followed up with a strange feeling of excitement when he finally comes back, either after promo or fighting, me waiting with a towel. Him taking my hand and bringing me to the locker room, waiting on the sofa as he washes up and changes so we can leave. I stay by his side from the moment we arrive and am right back in place as we leave.
Sharing hotel suites was already happening prior to my last checkup appointment, but lately…lately he’s not in the other bedroom. He’s in mine, or I’m in his. I’ve fallen asleep on his chest and wake up to the sound of his light, steady breathing in my ear as he holds me from behind.
Sometimes….sometimes when I wake up before him, I turn in his embrace, turn so I’m facing him, and I stare. My index finger lightly tracing the outline of his lips, traveling down the bridge of his nose, the apples of his cheeks, each stroke making my chest tighten and stomach flutter.
Neither of which have anything to do with the child growing in my belly.
The child we created.
A child that now feels so much realer than I realized.
I knew I was pregnant. Obviously. Ten million things have occurred since the night of conception to confirm as such, but hearing it….hearing the heartbeat of my baby, it’s done something to me.
Did something to him, too.
It’s all so…..different and strange, and I don’t even know what it is, but I know he has to feel it, too. The shift.
If only the thought of addressing it didn’t scare the living shit out of me.
Like….like doing so will ruin things.
Ruin us.
Funny thing though…..
I never realized there was an us to begin with.
—————
April 11th, 2021
His hand shifts to the back of my thigh, holding up my leg against his waist at the same moment my mouth drops open, head leaned back against the pillow. My fingers are lost within the silky locs of his hair, his head buried in the crook of my neck, soft lips pressed against my skin, slick with sweat, burning with the same level and amount of passion that fills the room.
He thrusts inside of me with that same level of fervent need, steady but deep, not rushed and animalistic like the first time we had sex. Where it was nothing more than frustration that manifested in two strangers who didn’t know each other from a can of paint but decided that they would be each other’s outlet.
If only we knew what it would all lead to.
My whimpers echo against the shell of his ear as my hands move down his back, under the soft sheets, partially damp from the heat of our bodies, gripping his ass as he moves inside of me, filling me in a way no man ever has. Making me feel a way no one else has. His name tumbles out of my mouth, breathy and needy, as he once more uses his grip on my thigh to tug me into him, making me meet him thrust for thrust.
My name is soon on the tip of his mouth, muffled into my neck, the sound somehow one of the best and most soothing things I’ve heard all day. Felt in some time.
Lips to his temple, he lifts his head, forehead against mine, his hands lifting to pin mine on either side of my head, against the soft set of pillows as he kisses me, deepening the loss that I find in him. Loss of fear. Loss of fright. Loss of the unknown. It all still exists, but in this moment, with him, it’s inconsequential. I breathe into his mouth, breaking our kiss as he adjusts the angle of his thrusts, deepening his reach.
A shaky, deep exhale as he breaks said kiss, forehead against mine. My eyes start to flutter shut when I see it, see how his gaze drops to between us, the sight of him moving inside of me one that could be seen for what it is. Erotic. Sensual. Salacious.
But, that’s not what he’s looking at. I don’t know how I know, but I do. It’s on the slight curve of my stomach, the way it extends out, both creating a bridge and gap between us.
In more ways than one.
I don’t know how we got here.
Tonight was supposed to be about him, and it was. Night two of WrestleMania 37. Where I watched him, from my private box courtesy of him, main event, successfully defending his titles against two of the best in the business. Waited for him afterwards. Not thinking. Just feeling. Jumping in his arms. Kissing him. Fully aware of the people watching. Cameras snapping.
It wasn’t for them.
Not at all.
Maybe that was it. The thing that ignited what eventually resulted in this. Clothes shed across this hotel room, his body moving against and with mine in a way I swore would never happen again. I swore a lot of things though. Have sworn off even more, and none of it seems to have made a difference.
Most of it….most of it doesn’t even feel right anymore.
But, this….the way he’s looking at me, the way he’s holding me, being with him, I’m not sure anything has ever felt more right.
—————
April 12th, 2021
She’s not what I was expecting.
Not in the slightest. I expected exactly what I perceived from our first meeting. Strong-willed, stubborn, difficult as hell.
And, she is all of those things, but she’s so much more.
She’s passionate and dedicated and loyal and unintentionally hilarious even when she’s 100% serious. She is her own person regardless of what anyone thinks, and while that’s made for some tense, heated interactions between us over the past few months, I can’t deny the shift.
I’d like to say it happened the day I accompanied her to her OB-GYN appointment, but that would be a lie. It was a catalyst, sure, but the tides started shifting well before that.
Thinking of her, at one point, gave me the biggest fucking headache. Any forced interactions things I counted down the minutes until they ended. Frustration at an all time high every time she opened up her smartass mouth, but along the way, dynamics started to change.
She still aggravated me unlike anyone else ever has, but arguments started turning into conversations, and these interactions that I once dreaded because moments that I appreciated.
Enjoyed, even.
Learning that beyond that rough, caustic exterior, there’s a person there that presents with layers I found myself gradually peeling back without even realizing I was doing so.
The same way she started to peel back mine.
Similairties, even.
I don’t fuck with a lot of people. Never have.
Neither does she.
My relationship with my parents is….complicated, to say the least.
Cards sent out on the major holidays and birthday texts that have gone unread the past couple years. Nothing beyond that.
Parental trauma, as a therapist once deemed it.
She seems to think the world of her dad, but her mom….definitely something there.
Again, relatable.
Parent….
I still think about the question she asked me day.
“Do you even want kids?”
It’d been asked before, but not very often, and the answer was always the same. An automatic no. Truth be told, I’ve never really given myself the space to think about such things. To really think about. Maybe because some part of me always imagined that only being a thing for folks who have the traditional white picket fence and “life partner,” signified by a rock on her finger and a band on his. Marriage. Another thing I’d been indifferent to.
Somewhat because I’d yet to ever really connect with or want someone enough to see anything beyond a bedroom or legs up on my shoulder. It’s always been based on the physical aspect of things. Never emotional.
That seemed like a recipe for disaster when you factor in a kid.
So, it was an automatic answer that felt and seemed right.
And, then, like our dynamic, anther shift.
The beginning was easy. Our situation nothing more than a business arrangement. I was helping her in the same way she was helping me, and assuming we didn’t kill each other along the way, it’d be a one and done thing.
But, then my disinterest and indifference started to gradually melt away, questions pressed from places I still don’t understand. About her. About the pregnancy.
About the baby.
Continuing until it reached a point where they weren’t enough. I wanted to see. Experience it for myself, thus asking to attend one of her appointments, completely oblivious to how it would change every fucking thing.
I still hear it. That stranger, unfamiliar rhythmic beat. A heartbeat.
A baby’s heartbeat.
My baby.
And suddenly, it wasn’t just a contract, an arrangement that worked for both. I didn’t know if it worked for her still, but it didn’t work for me.
Something changed entirely, and I didn’t know how or even if it was possible for us to go back.
That day proposed it.
Night 2 of Mania confirmed it.
It’d been building between us since the appointment. That much I know she felt. Shit was suffocating to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore, and neither could she.
The first time we fucked—the night we met—it was nothing more than a physical form of release. She was insanely irritating as fuck, but even with her obstinate ass personality, it didn’t negate the fact I was attracted to her. That she checked off all the boxes when it came to looks, and I didn’t have to like her to fuck her.
It was just a one night stand.
This though….this was the complete opposite.
Truth be told, I’ve never felt something like I felt that night with her. It was more than sex. Deeper than that.
Much…much deeper.
And, it cemented a lot of things for me that’d been confusing as fuck, as she laid sleeping on top of me afterwards, my hand splayed across her stomach the entire, all the while I managed to stop focusing so much on agreements, contracts, and irrelevant shit.
I focused on what I felt.
Even if it freaked the fuck out of me.
It didn’t matter though because doing so provided me with a sense of clarity, cleared up some of the haze around this whole thing.
Allowed me the liberty to finally stop trying to ignore and downplay what couldn’t be dismissed any longer.
I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.
She was partially distant the next day, and I expected as such. It makes all the sense given who she is and what she’s shared about her past.
What I didn’t expect though was for her to be gone.
For her to leave.
And, that’s exactly what she did.
--------------
April 17th, 2021
He’s not what I expected.
Arrogant, condescending, borderline narcissistic, but also….passionate, devoted, and committed.
There’s a man, an almost gentle man, behind the character that is Roman Reigns. There’s just Roman, and when he’s all in, he’s all in. If he cares abut something or someone, he won’t hesitate to stand ten toes down for such thing and such person.
Like myself.
He has a low tolerance for bullshit, and while it made for some….intense arguments between us, at some point, I grew to appreciate it. Appreciate him.
And, that scared the living shit out of me.
It all scares me. The lack of anger and vitriol towards him replaced with something warm, comforting, and…..nice.
Made me feel like I could get used to it. Used to him.
And maybe in some ways, I did.
I have.
It’s why I had to leave.
It was my time to do so anyway. The contract we signed stated I was only required to play my role until the point where the pregnancy couldn’t be concealed anymore, until I started showing, which was predicted to occur around the three to four month mark, and that’s where we were.
I was under no legal obligation to say.
But, that’s not why I left.
Not even a little.
Turning in bed, I rub at my eyes, the skin around dry and cracked. I can’t remember the last time I cried as much I have the past few days. Maybe the day I challenged my mother to love me more than she loved the liquor bottle she could never seem to let go of. The thing that she chose over me.
And, perhaps that’s what fuels the incessant, frequent crying that’s left me more or so bedridden since I returned home.
Because this whole thing has stirred up emotions I haven’t felt in years or perhaps emotions I haven’t allowed myself to feel in years.
Uncomfortable truths that I’ve kept safe and hidden behind the wall I keep around myself—and my heart—with everyone outside of my family.
A wall he’s seemingly found his way around, over, and through.
If only I’d realized it before the fact.
Sniffling, my hand on my stomach, I close my eyes hoping to maybe fall asleep. To find some brief, temporary escape from a reality I didn’t even realize was my reality.
Until it was too late.
But, it’s interrupted by the sound of my doorbell. A sound I fully intend to ignore but realize I shouldn’t. I can’t. It’s either Ravenna or my dad, both of whom, I’m sure, saw right through my forced smile and lying eyes when I said I was fine.
I’ve never felt so not fine.
They’ll surely wait outside that door all day and all night until I open, and they don’t deserve that. My pain cannot become their burden.
It’s why I force myself out of bed, loose pajamas pants dragging onto the floor, my feet shuffling against the carpet, out of my room, down the steps and to the front door. I look down at my tank top, double checking that I indeed have a bra on in the event it’s my dad before unlocking and opening.
It’s not my dad.
Not Ravenna, either.
My mouth is suddenly dry, my hand on the knob tightening, eyes widening slightly. One. Two. Three blinks. The third confirms that I’m not hallucinating. Not seeing things that aren’t there.
Seeing someone who’s not there.
Roman stands on my porch, hoodie over his head, hands stuffed in his pockets, mouth in a deep line, eyes reading as many emotions as I’m sure my own reflect.
“What….what are you….” I’ve never been one to struggle with words, but Goddamnit, I’ve never felt so incapable of something as simple as a question. “You…”
“Can I….can I come in?”
It takes a second for it to register, my body moving to the side to allow him in without truly considering it. He steps in and past me, my eyes shutting at the scent of him and how it takes me back to one of the last times I saw him. He hugged me. Held me. Or, maybe I held him, because I knew it would be the last time.
Thought it would be the last time I would ever see him.
Clearly….clearly I was wrong.
Turning around after locking the door, I’m met with the back of him, watching from behind how he looks around my living room. Still neat and tidy from the deep clean I did before leaving for the rood. My room is another story. My luggage and the few clothes I took out and started to put away spread across the dresser, nightstand, floor, and everywhere else it’s not supposed to be.
Representation of how I’ve felt ever since I landed back home.
“You left.”
I’m not sure what I was expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. A part of me wants to make a smartass, snide comment, as I typically would. But, I can’t. Can’t bring myself to do so.
Don’t feel like it.
“I did.”
He remains with his back towards me. “Why?”
For many reasons. For all the reasons, but that’s not necessarily something that I want to get into. That I feel emotionally able to get into.
“I did my part,” I whisper, the words never feeling so wrong coming out of my mouth. “I—I did my job.”
It’s the second addition that finally brings him to turn around, gaze remaining the same as it was when I first opened the door.
“We both know it’s more than just that.”
Silence.
I can’t maintain our eye contact, instead deviating to the sofa my dad helped me pay for as a housewarming gift when I first purchased my home two years ago. A sofa I sat on just this morning while sobbing. Similar to what I feel like doing now.
“I’ll sign it.”
And yet, another of just many whiplashes the man only a few feet away has given me in such a short period of time.
I don’t need to ask what he’s referring to. It’s obvious enough, especially when I realize I’d missed he hadn’t come alone.
There’s a manilla envelope tucked under his arm, one he removes and opens pulling out a sheet of paper that even across the way I can recognize through the formatting, words blurred but the sight of which not necessary for me to know.
The initial agreement I’d given him.
“Or, I won’t.”
180: Part Two. My mouth dips into a frown as I blink back the tears I can’t allow to fall in front of him. I can’t remember the last time I actually cried in front of anyone, and I can’t change that now because of him. Especially him. Because if I do, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.
In more ways than just the tears.
It’s why I only have one answer to give him.
That I can give him.
“Sign it.”
I wish I hadn’t turned to look at him as I gave him my answer, because the flash of oscillating emotions clears up so quickly, so instantly, that it’s impossible for me to ignore what I see.
Hurt.
He’s hurt.
But, it doesn’t stop the way he pulls out a pen from his pocket, walking over to my kitchen, using the small island as a hard surface to support the pressure of the pen as he uses it to fulfill his end of the agreement.
He signs it.
The disbelief, I’m sure, is painted across my face as he leaves the paper and the pen on the counter, signed and completed before he’s once again face me. I watch the way his jaw shifts, his lips parting ever so slightly, as if he’s going to say something. As if he wants to say something.
He doesn’t.
He just starts to move towards me, slow, steady steps that, at the last minute, redirect past me. My eyes shut as he stands beside me, my body facing one way, his another. Two souls that intertwined but were never meant to remain.
“Take care of yourself, Ravina.”
I don’t think such words have ever hit me so hard, slam into me in a way I can’t control, can’t maintain.
It all becomes too mouth, the sound of his footsteps heading towards the door, the sight of the single paper that serves as the ultimate form of severance. My heart.
I can’t take it.
“My mom left me.”
The stillness behind me is nothing compared to the hammering thud of my erratic heartbeat. The way I could so easily fall and collapse to the floor from the overwhelming nature of it all as I turn around, his back now towards me. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t even good enough for my own mom to stay, so why even bother letting anyone else get close enough to me?”
A rhetorical question but one that causes him to turn around, the flurry of emotions returning, but one more predominant than the others.
Understanding.
“They’ll just…they’ll just end up leaving, me, too.” Words I’ve never allowed myself to speak aloud for the very reason that’s occurring now. The dismantling and disintegration of my carefully cultivated walls, each step of his towards me another knock and shatter of the foundation. “And so will you.”
A hushed sentiment, my head dropping as I wraps my arms around myself right as he’s in front of me. In my proximity. In my space.
In me.
“Ravina….”
“It won’t wo—”
“Ravina.” No one has ever uttered my name with so much conviction, but he only ups the ante with the way his hands cup my face, forcing my teary gaze back on him. “Just…..just tell me what you want.”
What I want….
So many things. Many of which have never felt attainable or realistic for someone like myself. Not with my inability to connect with anyone.
But, I did.
I have.
I’ve done more than just connect.
Much….much more.
And again, it’s one of the most terrifying things in the fucking world, but it’s not at the top of that list. No….that….that dawned on me the moment he started walking away. This sickening, suffocating feeling that I don’t think I could bear.
I don’t know how to move forward with him.
But, I also don’t know how to move forward without him.
It’s a matter of picking one’s poison, an answer I allow to come not from all of the many, conflicting thoughts circling in my head but what swells in my heart having him in front of me. Near me. With me.
I swallow, lifting my hands to his wrists, gradually lowering his hands as I take three steps backwards, creating distance between us. I can feel his eyes burning into me as I walk to where he stood minutes earlier. A neat, legitimate signature staring back at me, my insurance of the very thing I wanted more than anything just a few months prior.
It’s there. Right there. What I wanted.
The security I needed.
But, maybe….maybe that’s not the security I need after all.
Maybe….maybe it’s something else.
I don’t know for sure, just know that before I realize what’s happening, the paper is in my hands, moving in opposite directions, ripping it into two, the broken pieces floating to the floor.
“I want you to stay.”
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so fucking terrified in the seconds that stretch between my pained, whispered answer and the way he closes the distance between us. My stomach is flipping every which way, my chest contracting and the shaky gasp leaving my mouth when he’s before me again. He cups my face once more, my hands grasping at his hoodie, tugging him closer, as if the physical proximity serves as some form of insurance and security that he won’t move.
That he’ll stay.
Head dipping, my eyes clench shut when he brushes his lips against my forehead.
“Then, I’ll stay.”
It’s hearing him say it, however, that makes it real. Turns something that’s a possibility into a reality. Plants seeds in soil that I’m not even sure is fertile and capable of handling such a risky deposit. Insecurity that I’m certain he can read and see. His right hand swoops behind my back, hand splayed, finger tips gently pressing into my skin as our fronts touch, my bump against his abdomen.
“Ravina….” I lift my head to look at him, the salty taste of my tears sitting on the corner of my mouth as he uses the hand still on my face to brush away the remaining tears. “I’ll stay.”
Repetition has always been the number one recommendation to ensure understanding, but that’s not a universal concept, because words are just that. Verbalizations that spill out of people’s mouths without second thought or actual consideration. People say things because they sound good. Not because they mean it.
That’s just how people are.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he continues. His eyes peer into me, soft, warm brown melting away thick, invisible—so I thought—layers that I’ve worked so hard over the years to build and erect around myself. Defenses that fell at the feet of him the moment he stepped into my home. His hand lowering from my face to my bump evokes a quiet sniffle. “I promise.”
Promise…just another word that lands with no meaning if there’s no action to accompany it.
“I don’t….” Fuck. It’s been forever since I’ve heard myself sound so unsure. Since I’ve felt so unsure. “I don’t know how this is going to work.”
The logistics. The semantics. All of it.
Or, if it’ll even work.
But, he seems completely unbothered, hand moving in a small complete circle over my stomach. “We’ll figure it out.”
I don't know what it is about that confidence, but it's what I need. What helps me wipe at my face and clear my throat, slipping back into that ease of who I am. Who he knows me to be. Who he still wants, regardless.
“I’m not gonna drop my whole life to come follow you around like some groupie. Me nor Fido.”
“Wouldn’t expect you to.”
“And, I’m also not good at this whole relationship thing, either, so don’t expect to make sappy posts about you on social media.”
He chuckles, ushering me into him, my eyes shutting once more as I take in his scent and relax in his embrace that feels like a place I’ve been before. A place I never want to leave. “Damn sure wouldn’t expect that, either.”
“I also still think you’re a narcissistic egomaniac. Just a part time one.”
“And you’re an insufferable smartass who doesn’t know when to shut up.” It’s impossible for me to hold my smile, hidden in the layers of his hoodie, as I tighten my arms around his waist. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
I suck my teeth and peer up at him, glaring when he meets my gaze. “You also better not start doing that annoying thing men do when they—”
“I love you.”
There’s a certain pattern and formula that’s inherent and embedded in every single piece of fiction that depicts some sort of romance. Book. Movie. Show. Whatever. Doesn’t matter the format. There’s always this grand scene that's been eased into via little moments that make you kick your feet or smile to yourself, fingers burning and itching to turn the page or select start next episode.
A moment that’s the result of the tiny, little, precious moments that have built up to this climax, this singular happening that was always going to happen, that needed to happen, because it was always supposed to happen.
I’ve seen that play out countless times over.
I just never thought that it could be my moment.
I don’t know what to feel, how to feel, what to say, or even how to fucking function. I just know that no three words have ever felt or seemed so right until they came from his mouth, his eyes glossing over me like I’m everything right in his life.
The same way he’s everything right in mine.
“127.”
His brows craving and the small grin he’s clearly trying to hold back make me bite down on my bottom lip. “What?”
Licking my lips, my body against his, my life forever entwined with his in the most unexpected of ways, my hand rests over his. Over my stomach. Over my baby.
Over our baby.
“Pet Peeve #127,” I answer, the warmth, the calm, the peace, finally finding it’s final resting place. Our eyes lock once more, the bond sealed, my heart at home. “Making me love you, too.”
♡ — 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 | ⇢ consider this enemies to lovers with a hint of 'pride and prejudice' influences, topped off with the iconic '10 things i hate about you.' she ended up being almost 15k, so i've decided to split her into two for the sake of not wanting to overwhelm anyone. also, COVID never happened here, and big head works a full time schedule. inspired by this post from @shugamama 💖
♡ — 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐎 | ❝fire on fire❞ by sam smith (if you wanna see/listen to the playlist i made while writing it, because i'm an extra ass bitch, click here)
♡ — 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓 ⇢ graphics and dividers made by me.
January 30th, 2021
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“Ray.”
“Raven.”
She pauses in the middle of her cutting. Short, pale pink nails a contrast to the russet color of the half-peeled potato. An irritated sigh as she leans back into the chair, striped shirt accentuating and hugging her breast, the unfinished item dripped onto the table.
“Uh oh,” I sing-song, reaching to grab the abandoned potato only for her to slap my hand away. “Ow!”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.
“You can’t be, Ravina.”
“I need you to not use my government name. It’s weird.”
Her eyes widen in that ‘you can’t be serious’ sort of way she’s always done since we were kids.
It’s weird. Ravenna and I are identical twin sisters, born exactly seven minutes apart, and despite almost thirty years of somewhat peaceful co-existence, every day I find something new about her that I didn’t realize before.
Like how she looks just like dad whenever I say some shit he doesn’t approve of, which is most of the time. Same slight furrow of the brow, crinkle of the nose. Her nose. But, also my nose.
That’s also another strange part of being a twin. The lack of individuality. Personality wise, yeah, that’s not a problem. Even, technically, in appearance. Like how I don’t think I’ve seen my sister’s natural curly hair, again, like my own, since we were in middle school and daddy got her that ConAir flat iron for Christmas.
Meanwhile, when I do flat iron my hair, it’s with this cheap ass one I picked up from the clearance aisle at Walmart as a teenager that may or may not spark when I plug it up but still gets the job done.
Again, differences.
“And, I need you to use your brain.” Yup. Definitely like dad. “This is actually an insane idea, and you’ve had some crazy ideas over the years.”
Shrugging, I flip my curls over my shoulder, tapping my ‘time for another fill’ acrylics onto the table. “They say that insanity is just another form of intelligence.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, perhaps abandoning this joint effort of ours to peel this big ass bag of potatoes for her even bigger ass family for dinner tonight. “I can’t believe we’re really having this conversation.”
“I mean, it’s not really a conversation, per se,” I correct, reaching for my phone out of my purse that sits slumped in the chair next to me. “I’m just telling you what I’m doing.”
Her heated gaze remains on me while I navigate through a bunch of spam emails that I signed myself up for every time I agree to get said emails just to score the 10% discount on whatever I’m ordering. “Ray, you cannot do this.”
“Technically, it’s already done.”
“Ray!”
“What?” I snap, scoffing and shaking my head. “It is.” My answer is accompanied by my hand dropping to my stomach, the rolls accentuated from my slightly slouched position. But, instead of focusing on the dark red of said shirt that I’ve had for almost a decade now, I think about what cannot be seen with the naked eye. The tiny blotch of cells growing inside of me. Three weeks and one day. Not even a full month just yet, but it’s in there, not yet what it will eventually grow into being, but at the very beginning, early stages.
“Have you even thought about this? Like really thought about it?”
Her question causes my gaze to shift upward. “You know I have. I was already planning—
She closes her eyes, lifting up her index finger to silence me. “Please do not remind me of that also terrible idea of yours.”
“You think all my ideas are terrible.”
“Because they are!”
“Well, I’m sorry we can’t all be like you, Tour Guide Barbie.” I roll my eyes, redirecting my focus to my phone once more, preferring to be overwhelmed with spam than the judgmental eyes of my perfect ass sister.
And, I do mean perfect.
Ravenna Ellis, well Ravenna Duncan now, has always been the definition of perfection. When I was fighting for my life to find a routine for my high porosity hair, she flourished with her normal porosity and simple one, two, three step hair routine biweekly. Spending an hour in the skincare aisle trying to figure out what was next on my list of products to buy to try to combat my raging acne as a teenager.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen her with a pimple.
Refusing to come out the dressing room because, of course, I could never seem to find something that looked good on me. Too tight around the chest. My thighs threatening to burst the seams of the jeans. Annoying gap in the back. Bending over and risking showing everyone my Sunday best. And, despite us damn near having the same shape, everything, literally everything she put on always looked good.
Always.
Late nights making study cards, stuffing and cramming as many words as I could only to still barely pull off a high B, meanwhile she could study for a half hour, if that, and land that beautiful A in the corner along with the sweet little notes from majority of her teachers.
The only notes teachers ever left for or gave me were the ones I had to forge my dad’s signature on.
Raven presses her lips together. “You don’t have to be like me, Ray. You just have to be smart. And, keeping the baby you conceived from a one night stand with a man you don’t even know is far from smart.”
A murmured, half interested, half disconnected reply. “I mean, isn’t the whole ‘not knowing’ what makes it a one night stand?” I can practically feel the exasperation radiating from and through her. “That’s also the whole point of this. I don’t want to be in a relationship. I don’t want to raise this baby with anyone. Just myself. Me and my kiddo.”
Which is why my initial plan to get knocked up was, despite Perfect Penny’s objection—might have to make that her new contact name—the, pun intended, perfect plan.
Join one of those local Facebook groups for folks like myself who are tying to have a baby but aren’t in a relationship or just can’t afford one of those overpriced sperm donor places. I could get the same results, just not as sophisticated, for a fraction of the price.
I thought it was genius. My sister, however, thinks I’m fucking crazy, which she’s not entirely wrong about, but not in regards to this particular thing.
“Do you even know his name, Ray?”
“I do.” It’s too quick of an answer, because not even seconds later, I realize that I very much don’t. “Okay, maybe not.” Sitting up in the chair, I continue to work to help her understand my side of things here, even though it seems she’s very much made up her mind. Typically Ravenna. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He’ll never know. Not that I’d even want him to know. He was such a fucking ass—”
Aw shit.
Before I can even offer some sort of apology, she’s angrily pointing that same finger to the clear jar near the middle of the table, pushed back in favor of the sack she’d placed on top. Neat, Ravenna looking handwriting spelling out, “swear jar.”
“You should have became a nun,” I mutter having yanked out two quarters from the sides of my purse to deposit into the jar I’ve singlehandedly filled up every year since its implementation three years prior.
And, at this rate, given it’s the tip end of January, and it’s already about 25% full, I’d say the tradition will continue strong.
“He couldn’t have been too much of jerk for you to sleep with him.”
“I take back my nun comment. You’re way too judgy for that.” The desire to flip her off must be withheld since I’m pretty sure that was my last two quarters and given that she’s also deemed nonverbal, vulgar gestures to be on that list of ‘No, No’s,’ I’m better off saving it for the car ride home as I blast the filthiest Megan song I can find.
Granted, she’s not entirely wrong.
He was an asshole, but damn was he fine.
Best fucking sex of my life, too. Not that I have a ton to compare it and him to but….still.
“Wait here.” I hate the way that her command, so sure and final, has me do just that. For someone who’s mocked authority and almost flunked out of middle school because of my absences, no one has ever been able to get me to listen like my sister.
My dad, sure, but as a construction worker who worked long days and late nights to keep a roof over our head and food in our bellies, he rarely had time to handle all of the disciplinarian actions I required as a wayward youth.
Ravenna returns with her husband’s laptop. I can tell by the sports sticker that’s faded around the corners but still standing strong. Shoving the bag out of the way, she slides her chair across their wood flooring and plops the computer down.
“What are you doing?”
My question is ignored as she opens, unlocks, and navigates to the browser, leading up to the infamous white screen with the singe source and destination for all things in the world.
Google.
“Raven, you know I don’t like it when you’re quiet.” I prefer the silence of most around me, but my twin has always been the exception. It’s why our arguments and “falling out’s” never last long. My sister may drive me insane, and I’m sure she’d say the same about me—and more— but she’s my sister.
My twin.
Our bond can never be broken.
“Alright,” she starts as I turn to realize she’s navigated to a website, the splash screen instantly having me regretting coming over here today.
“Rav—”
“Which one is it?” She straight up cuts me off, sitting in her chair, body angled towards me with her arms crossed over her chest. “Start looking.”
“This is stupid, Ravenna.”
“No, what’s stupid is this crazy plan of yours to keep some random man’s baby. I want to know who random man is.”
“He’a from Atlanta.”
“Ow!” Another shout as she kicks my shin with the front of them hard ass Ugg slippers that look like they’re on their last leg of life.
“Look.”
I don’t want to, but I do, instantly scowling at the onslaught of the ugliest shade of blue. WWE Smackdown in the top left corner of the website with a variety of tabs to select from, but the one I need has already been chosen for me.
Roster
“This is why I should have just been like those teenage girls who hide their pregnancies. Popped up with baby Fido.” I’m certain she rolls her eyes but says nothing as I use the trackpad to scroll down, only willing to give this a good solid two minutes before I find an excuse to dip. Maybe something about needing to leave in time to pick up prenatals.
Or, maybe I get that via prescription?
Shit, I should probably schedule my appointment with my OB-GYN.
I mean, I’m pretty sure the two 16oz cans of Arizona Tea I drank to take three tests that all came back with the same results would be proof enough.
But….ya never know.
Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been disappointed in life.
Except, I don’t have to worry about that, because the first initial scroll brings me to the man in question.
“There!” I point to the screen, looking over at her. “That’s him!”
Undoubtedly.
Same strong facial features with a nose that’s objectively big but also fits as the overall theme of him is said big. Built like a fucking boulder, valleys of taut muscle, a voice that could seduce even a nun out of her tunic. Silky black hair that I can vouch feels just as soft as it looks. Full lips, the top slightly overhanging the bottom pulled into a scowl that fits. Just screams pompous asshole.
Again.
Fits.
Her eyes follow the guidance of my pointing, as I lean back in the chair, already over this whole thing. “There. Are you—”
“Oh my God.”
The recline is interrupted as a frown breaks on my face both at the way her facial expression entirely shifts to something of astonishment, mouth partially jar. She looks over at me, finger actually on the screen, on him. “This is him?”
I look from side to side wondering if the forever boisterous, loud sounds of my five rambunctious nieces and nephews who are always yelling have finally taken a toll on my saint of a sister’s hearing.
Fido bet not ever make all that damn noise.
I’ll just give him or her a tablet or something. Make sure they only play those educational games. The silence while they learn sounds like a good ass time to me.
“Yeah….”
Somehow, her eyes widen even more as she clicks on his headshot, making the photo even bigger and pulling up a paragraphs long bio that I’d rather watch all five of them Bebe’s kids (my nieces and nephews) than have to read. Why the fuck does a professional (fake) wrestler need all that?
Except, while I’m wondering just how all in they go for this staged shit, my sister looks like she’s about to shit bricks. Or another baby. Ha. That’ll be me in like nine month.
Her hand is on my arm, eyes still bug wide, like she’s seen a ghost. Or that time she walked in on my dad having sex with his then girlfriend. Yasmine or something? Hated that lopsided titty bitch.
“Ravina…..”
Once more, I’m annoyed. It’s my name, yeah, but whenever she says it like that, I instantly get irritated, cause I know some shit is about to follow. And, it does, just in the softest yet loudest voice ever.
Such a Ravenna thing.
“Roman Reigns is your baby’s daddy?”
—————
February 5th, 2021
“You’re what?”
126.
There are exactly 126 things that annoy the living shit out of me. I would know. I counted them all one day when I was constipated and waiting for the prune juice to kick in, needing a distraction from the literal shit I couldn’t get out of me.
Pet peeves, as some would call them.
Things that make me want to subtract from the population is how I see it.
And near the very top of that list, possibly top ten, is having to repeat myself.
Which is exactly what the man across from me is asking me to do.
The man who I’ve already wanted to run over with the nearest vehicle at least ten times now since this conversation started about twenty minutes ago.
He doesn’t get an immediate response. Wouldn’t be a very nice one anyway. I instead grab the glass that’s almost due for another refill, using the straw to mix around the ice cubes and three lemons I dropped in after having to remind the nice waitress about my initial request when she took my order.
It’s in remembering that that makes me look around, just now taking in the fact that outside of the staff, there’s no one here except us. Me and the man who flew me out after my DM that I 100% wasn’t expecting him to respond to. Didn’t want him to. But, he did, and now I’m here.
Unfortunately.
Because he’s even more insufferable than I remember.
Still fine as fuck though.
The white shirt he’s wearing probably a size too small, fighting for its life against his massive as arms that are about the same size as my head. He’s got some expensive looking sunglasses sitting atop his head, a watch on each wrist—psychopath—and his hair pulled back, similair to how he looked when we first met.
When this tall ass giant from Babylon had the audacity to show up my desk, being the dick that he is, complaining like a little bit—
“Davina.”
God, people have been using my government way too much. My sister saying it is one thing, but him saying it is entirely different.
At least he remembered it though.
“Sorry,” I apologize, but it’s insincere, nor do I try to make it seem sincere. Shrugging, I simply repeat what I’ve already said once. Just a little….differently. “You uh, what do the kids say these days? Shot up the club? Something like that.” I lean back, gesturing down to my stomach, hidden underneath the thick layers of my hoodie. Whatever fucking part of Minnesota this is, it’s fucking freezing and should not be deemed inhabitable or visitable with such cold ass conditions.
Should have taken that jacket like my sister told me to.
“Put a bun in the over.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And you’re sure?”
“That’s what the three tests I took said. Pretty sure my lady doctor will say the same thing, too.”
“You haven’t even had a real test yet?”
I drop my fork right after stabbing it into the expensive ass salmon I ordered. Damn, I hope he’s paying for this. “Those three tests cost me about thirty bucks. They better be real.”
Or else guess who’s returning for a full refund? Piss stained or not. “Look, in all my years on this fucked up, God forsaken earth—”
“How old are you?”
There’s a slight shift in his voice. Still irritated but also curious. It’s still annoying though. I hate being interrupted.
That’s #65 on the list.
“29. I’ll be 30 in September.” Not sure why I add on the last part. Also not sure why he’s even asking. Isn’t that something to inquire about before doing the do? Late ass.
It makes me wonder how old he is though. A few years older than me, for sure. But, there can’t be that much of an age gap.
Not that it matters.
“But, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me.” He looks unbothered by my intentional snide ass comment. Pompous bastard. “My period has never been late. Ever. That raggedy hoe should have been here almost two weeks ago and nada.”
He continues to look at me as I continue to wonder just how much longer this shit is gonna take. I’m about halfway done with my food, and he’s….shit, he didn’t even order anything. Not even a salad or whatever insanely fit people eat. Or, maybe he thinks he’s too good to eat at this random ass restaurant he selected for us to meet at.
“How the fuck do I even know if it’s mine?” I would be lying if I said his question isn’t something I was expecting, and it’s fair, I guess.
“Well, we fucked raw, and honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t have to blow the cobwebs off that shit, because it’s been like two years—”
“You haven’t had sex in two years?”
“You gonna keep interrupting me?”
“As long as I have questions.”
“What if I don’t wanna answer your damn questions, Larry King?”
“You really think you’re in a position not to?”
“I wouldn’t be in this position if you didn’t put me in that positionin the first place.” I’ve tried to figure out which one it actually was. The one that put lil’ Fido in me. My guess would be when he was fucking me against the wa—
“I want a DNA test.”
And there it goes.
I blow out a sigh, any interest in the delicious, surprisingly seasoned well meal in front of me out the window.
Here goes nothing.
“There’s no need for that.” The look on his face, that same stoic ass, annoyed ass expression he wore the first time we met makes me want to throw this good ass lemon water all over his basic but probably expensive ass outfit. But, it’d be a shame to waste perfectly good lemons like that.
Especially since he’s paying for it.
I hope.
I reach into my bag, digging through all the unnecessary shit I probably didn’t need to bring but brought anyway, pulling out the folder that I’ve probably had since my brief college stint.
Just another thing you failed at.
I shove the plate in his direction, glass clanking, making noise that obviously bothers him by the way he looks down at the half eaten fish in disgust. Opening said folder, I lick my thumb to pull it out, pleased smile on my face.
“All you have to do is sign this.”
Reaching across the table, I do my best to muster up a smile I’m certain doesn’t meet my eyes and looks nothing like the one my perfect ass twin has flashed since we popped out that woman’s dried out pussy and more like that prune juice day.
Him just staring without accepting doesn’t help either.
“Would you just take the damn thing?” I snap, unable to help myself. I got 99 problems currently, and Goliath over here is all but one of them. His gaze flicks up as I blink, this cheap ass mascara starting to make my eyes water. My dupe queen Nina Pool failed me. Tragic. “Please.”
“What is it?”
Pet Peeve #72
Asking without looking.
I blink three times. “Why don’t you read it?” Another flash of irritation and another inability to control my mouth. “You can read, can’t you?”
A flash of anger, those soft, full lips pulled up into a snare. “Are you always this much of a bitch?”
I shrug, completely unfazed. Surprisingly, being called a bitch by the opposite sex has never really bothered me. I recognize they’re the lesser species and thus have limited vocabulary, hence recycling the same old insults. It’s laughable, really. “Not always.” Head tilted, I bring back the smile with an added wink. “On the weekends, I’m a cunt.”
It’s actually my speciality, not that he seems to care. He only looks like he’s climbed yet another flight of steps to blowing his fucking gasket. Good. The egomaniac needs to be knocked down a few pegs anyway.
Paper finally snatched from my grasp, I watch the way his eyes shift from left to right like someone does when reading. “What the fuckis this?”
“Okay, so you can read, but you can’t comprehend.”
“I’m really starting to lose my fucking patience with you.”
Did he even have any to begin with? Not that it matters. He wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last.
“Look,” I start, leaning over the table, lowering my voice as if not wanting anyone to overhear what’s about to be said. I don’t, but there’s literally no one here. Not even that really nice waitress who owes me a refill on my water. “This is a very neat, nice legal document I found on some random legal website that cost me about $30 to customize and make work for our little….situation.”
He once again is looking over at me, over the top of the paper that would solve all of our problems if he would get his head out of his ass and just sign it. “You want me to give up my parental rights?”
I roll my eyes. “Duh. That’s what it says.”
A little bit more than that, actually. Makes it very clear that he is not only forfeiting any parental rights to Fido but also ensures he will not, at any point, attempt to make contact with said child nor myself for the rest of, well, all of our lives. A single signature could sign off any and all responsibility in every possible way, which is exactly what I want.
I have no interest in the man across from me. Not his money. Not his involvement. Not even his dick, which was probably the only 10/10 about him outside of his physical appearance. I just want to ensure that this baby, my baby will stay my baby.
“Do you even want kids?” Not sure where it comes from, but it feels like a valid question.
The deepening of his scowl is really all I need to know. “No.”
“Then, this is perfect for both of us. I get what I want, you get what you want, we go our separate ways after this, and I never have to see your annoying ass face ever again.” Digging in my bag once more, I pull out a capless pen, reaching for one of the thick ass napkins and scribbling over it, ensuring it still has some ink. “So, why don’t you do us both—”
“No.”
One. Two. Three. “Excuse me?”
His big ass, broad shoulders move up and then down as he allows the paper to float down to the table. “I said no. I’m not signing it.”
Now, I’m the one staring stupidly, once more blinking a couple of times before I break out in a smile.
“You’re not signing it,” it’s spoken to myself but also him, light laughter accompanied with my acknowledgment. “He’s not—Listen here, Julius Rules.” A complete 180 as I slam my fist on the table, smile traded in for a scowl and sneer that match the one he’s directed my way almost this entire time.
“It’s Roman Reigns.”
“Him too,” I dismiss. “I was trying really hard to be nice to you, which was already a fucking task, because I hate most people and you are quickly rising to the top of that list. I am offering you what anyone in your position would die to have. A way to disown a child you don’t even want—”
“How do I even fucking know if it’s my kid? I don’t know you.”
“And, I don’t know you, but that didn’t stop us from fucking, now did it?” I shoot back, 100% matching his aggressive ass energy cause fuck this man if he thinks he’s about to intimidate me into shit. “Now, if you would stop being difficult and—”
“I said no.” He stands ten toes down on his decision that’s about to have me catch a charge for aggravated assault and battery, cause the minute his scowl shifts into a smug smirk, I’m about ten seconds away from lunging across this damn table. “Unless—”
“Unless?”
I swear to sweet black Jesus, if this dumbass is going to suggest we hook up again—
“Did you ever take a second and ask yourself why I even agreed to meet you?” He asks it so calmly, so cooly, also leaning over to meet me halfway. Just physically. Not in any other regard. It’s in our faces being so close to one another that I realize he has the lightest layer and color of freckles spread across his T-Zone. “Why I went out my way to handle the arrangements?”
My face drops, his words slamming into me.
Well, shit.
I hadn’t. And not that I would ever admit to such a thing, he has a bit of a point. Him responding to my DM was a miracle in and of itself. Or, maybe it was someone on his team. Probably that Heyman guy.
Working at Laselle’s, one of the most high end hotel chains on the east coast and the preferred choice for most entertainers and rich folks when they travel, especially WWE, I’ve seen his pop up at least a dozen times. Handling bookings for a variety of names I couldn’t list off even for a million dollars. Including the man centimeters away from me. Following the response to my DM, I was reached out to by the Heyman guy who passed on all necessary info. This is the most I’ve spoken to Caesar since the night we met, argued, and fucked in all under twenty-four hours.
Also conceived Fido, not that he’s trying to claim that part of things.
But, again, the point remains true and important that The Gladiator didn’t have to agree to meet with me.
So, why did he?
It’s a question that I pose to him, eyes narrowed, starting to think this motherfucker has ulterior motives and a hidden agenda.
“Why am I really here?”
———————
February 12th, 2021
This was a mistake. Quite possibly one of the biggest fucking mistakes I’ve ever made in my life, and Lord knows I’ve made plenty of those.
“Ms. Eills—”
“I’m busy.”
Not really. I’m not busy at all, but that doesn’t stop me from pretending I am, reopening and closing apps I don’t even remember downloading let alone using.
It doesn’t work though, as the rotund man in front of me remains exactly where he is, clearly not planning to go anywhere.
Shit.
Lifting my irritated ass gaze from my screen, dimmed dark to avoid being exposed for the antisocial fraud I am, I meet his beady blue eyes. “What?”
He smiles, and I don’t know if it’s some early pregnancy symptom or just that I am utterly repulsed by Paul Heyman.
Maybe both.
And, it’s not even that he’s a bad guy, or I don’t think he is. He’s just doing his job, but him doing his job only ever annoys me, thus placing him in that “repulsive” category.
He pulls out a handkerchief from the pocket of his suit—does he ever wear anything else?—dabbing his forehead that boasts a light layer of sweat before swallowing. “Mr. Reigns will require your accompanying him—”
“I’m staying in the hotel tonight.”
I swear I can see the moment his affable demeanors shifts to something almost nervous. “I don’t think you—”
“I was spotted with him last night, isn’t that enough?”
Paul closes and opens his mouth, thin lips eventually settling into a tight smile. “Not exactly.”
The loudest groan ever escapes my mouth as I bang my head into the back of the blinds, the sounds of them clanking against the window making him wince.
Again, worst idea ever.
I laughed when Julius first said it, suggested it, offered it, whatever. This asinine idea of me essentially cosplaying as his fake girlfriend in exchange for his signature. Thought he’d smoked something before we met. Felt like I was being Punk’d or some shit as he explained something about a “scandal” that needed some “damage control.”
I was that damage control apparently.
A quick little google search allowed me to find out he was taking heat for a not so nice interaction with a couple of fans, shoving some teenagers who, to be fair, were all up in his space, knocking them to the ground. Parents were threatening to sue but mysteriously went away, most likely accepting hush money or lifetime tickets to any WWE show.
But, it didn’t stop the numerous articles I ran across, “dirt sheets” as they call them in the biz, spilling about Roman’s massive ego—not entirely untrue—and the “nightmare” he is behind the scenes. Again, not untrue.
The Ice King’s image took a hit because of it though, and they were trying to smooth it over with the classic PR 101 relationship. Except instead of another wrestler, another celebrity, they wanted a plain Jane, a relative nobody that showed WWE’s money maker himself isn’t above dating a “regular ole’ girl.”
I just happened to have the misfortune of DMing him at the same time he and the corpulent man in front of me were brainstorming options.
Lucky me.
Thus, the proposal.
Spend a few months on the road with him, or until I start showing to the point where it can’t be hidden, staging a couple of sightings of us being together to help rehabilitate his image in exchange for his signature.
The laugh I let out when he first said it had to have been a sight to see. I almost told him to go fuck himself. Actually, I did tell him to go fuck himself, but I quickly realized that I might have met my match when it comes to stubbornness.
He refused to sign unless I agreed, and I refused to leave unless he signed.
Thus, that left me in the position that I’min now.
Playing the fake girlfriend of a celebrity asshole who also happens to be the father of Fido.
You can’t make this shit up.
“You are aware of the terms of your contract, yes?” Painfully so. “Your abiding by the terms of your end of the agreement ensures Mr. Reigns upholds his end of the agreement.” I look up to see the tight smile remains, but it’s also matched by the evenness of his voice.
“Is that a threat?”
Because threats aren’t always promises of what will happen. They’re also promises of what cannot happen, and though I’m only a week into this shit, I feel like I’m too far in now to call it all off. Even if I wanted to, I can’t.
I need that signature.
It’s why, against my better judgment and religion, I hit the lock button on the side of my phone and continue in my role of indentured servitude.
“What time do I need to be ready?”
———————
February 18th, 2021
“Who the fuck even asked you anything in the first place?”
“It’s not about who asked me, moron! If I have something to say, I’m gonna say it!”
“Well, say it to someone who gives a fuck, cause I sure as hell don’t.”
“Don’t tell me who to talk to, you insufferable egomaniac!” My hand forms into a fist at my side as I gesture to the only man currently on this tour bus that I don’t want to strangle with my favorite pair of stretchy leggings. “You are so mean to your cousin and for no reason!”
I already knew Julius was an asshole, but I guess a part of me figured that was just towards peasants like myself. But, two weeks on the road with the Ares impersonator has shown that I am not the only one subjected to his massive ass ego and rude ass ways.
His cousin is as well.
Jey.
A nice guy.
Easy on the eyes, too. Quiet sometimes but has definitely shown signs of having a temper like his cousin, though never with said cousin, who is the main one he should pop off on.
“My family dynamics are none of your fucking business, Ravina,” he’s quick to shoot back, as we stand in the middle of his tour bus on the way to God knows where, Jey still sitting in the booth section, cards still laid out from the game of Uno we were all playing until Zeus over here decided to piss me the fuck off.
“It’s Ray,” I correct with the swiftness, cause who the fuck does he think he is? “Only my friends and family can call me Ravina, and I don’t have many friends, and last I checked, you’re not my family, so it’s Ray, you nimrod!”
I finish, dabbing my finger in his chest, as he looks down as if the slight impact and touch of my poor hands on him will somehow melt over and contaminate him.
“Now stop being mean to Jey!”
“You don’t get to tell me what the fuck to do!”
“Aye, guys, it’s really not—”
Almost in perfect synchronization do we both turn to Jey, words, sentiment, and emotions the same. “Stay out of it!”
He does, in fact, stay out of it, or rather has nothing else to add because shortly after, myself and my insufferable captor are on opposite sides of the bus, stewing in the bulk of the only thing we have in common.
How much we hate each other.
———————
February 24th, 2021
“Would you stop moving?”
“Would you hurry up and take the damn picture?” He snaps.
“I would if you would stop moving.” Because it’s his fault we’re ten minutes into this shit and still don’t have the right one.
Pet Peeve #14
Shit taking longer than it needs to.
One referring to the selfie we’re attempting to take. A snapped shot of what couldn’t be more inauthentic but something his team wants to leak to the media in addition to the ones we’ve already provided for them in real time.
Me walking hand in hand with him into the arena a few hours before the beginning of a show. Me, draped in one of his oversized hoodies, head down, his arm around me as he escorts me into the SUV after said show. A glimpse or two of us walking into the hotel together. Nothing too insane, though it does surprise me a bit that they haven’t tracked down my information, or even my name.
I feel like that always happens in the shows, books, and movies that depict this sort of fake dating trope.
The girl always gets outed, but perhaps my having little to no friends and a minimal social media presence has paid off. Even attached to one of the most popular figures in sports or sports entertainment, I am still invisible. Not enough.
It tracks.
“You know what, I’ll just crop it.” It’d be the easiest and best thing because trying to snap this fake ass “cutesy” photo of me sitting on his lap without him looking into the mirror across from us but also me partially eclipsing my face isn’t it.
“With that wack ass Android.” His snide remark earns a punch into the big ass arm of his.
“I’m sick of you talking shit about my phone.” Lord knows I truly am. “Just cause I’m not an Apple sheep like the rest of you—”
“Here you go again.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes closed as I surely do prepare to give my fifth delivery of my passionate speech regarding the dangers and ridiculousness of buying the same subpar phone every year all for a slightly better iPhone.
Android could never.
But, it’s in shifting once more and an irritating throbbing in my chest that makes me defer it. “Just forget it. I can’t fix stupid.”
“And, you would know.” Another punch, the motion of me lifting my arm making me wince. “What’s wrong?”
I look over at him, hating how he rakes his eyes over me. “My boobs hurt.” There’s a brief thought to lie, but honestly, I don’t care enough about it or him to do so. “Probably a Fido symptom.”
And, if it’s not, when I fly back home next week for the two month OB-GYN checkup appointment, I’ll mention it to doc.
He rolls his eyes, not commenting on my actual answer and more the identifier. “I don’t know why the fuck you keep calling it Fido.”
“Because I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, and Fido is gender neutral.” I shrug, navigating and managing to snap another photo when he hits me with another question.
“What do you want it to be?”
Another turn to look at him as well as another noticing of something I didn’t before. The flat mole on the shell of his left ear, unlike the slightly raised one atop his left eyebrow that’s only really noticeable when in close proximity.
Like we are now.
“A boy,” I answer, after eventually pulling myself away from observation mode. “I put my dad through too much for me to want my first kid to be a girl. Gotta have a trial one with the boy.”
He chuckles, and I think it’s the first time I’ve seen or heard him do as such. “So, you’ve always been difficult?”
“I pride myself on it,” I humph. “But, it’s alright. My perfect ass sister evened it out.”
“There’s two of you?” I can’t help it. The horror in his voice and on his face are too funny. I have to laugh.
“Three, technically.” He looks like he might just pass out. I hope not. His big ass would smother me. “A twin sister who’s literally perfect—you would love her—and an older sister who is…well, she does her own thing.” Always has.
“Are ya’ll identical?”
I nod, flipping my phone around in my hand, having closed up the camera. “I mean, she keeps her hair straight, and personalty wise, we’re night and day, but other than that, yup.” I pop the ‘p,’ prepared to change the subject when I remember something. “Jey’s a twin, right?”
He nods. “Yeah, Jimmy. He’s injured right now.” It’s like he knew I was going to ask about where he is then, since it seems all their family knows how to do is wrestle. “Their dad is a twin, too.”
“Damn.” Correction. All his family knows how to do is wrestle and make twins. It makes a horrifying thought cross my mind as I look down at my not flat, but not due to pregnancy and more so my natural rolls and the breakfast burrito I ate not too long ago, stomach. “Don’t even think about it, Fido.”
Had I been looking up, I might have caught something else I haven’t seen before.
Him smile.
———————
March 4th, 2021
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I look like the type of man to kid?”
My eyes gloss over him as he sits on the sofa opposite mine, legs spread, thighs stretching against the dark grey sweats, similair to how his arms fight against another two sizes too small shirt. Or, maybe it’s just him.
Maybe he’s just too big.
Just like his dick.
“Clear eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t lose,” I say while sitting up to sit on my knees, pushing back frizzy curls behind my ears. But, he continues to look at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language, and maybe I am. “You mean to tell me you played football almost your whole life and you’ve never seen Friday Night Lights?”
“The movie?”
“No. The show.”
“There was a show?”
I reach for the decorative pillow and allow it to swallow my loud ass groan, my voice muffled as I insult, “you have no culture.”
Dropping said pillow allows me to see the moment he rolls his eyes. “You were watching it. I was living it.”
Fair.
But, again, I can’t give him any ammunition.
“Well, I’m gonna make you watch it.”
He frowns. “What?”
“You heard me.” I shift once again on the sofa, sitting so that my legs are crossed, snatching my phone off the nice ass coffee table of his hotel suite. “It’s on Netflix.”
“I don’t care.”
Completely ignoring him, I continue to explain just why he should and is going to watch said show. “I think you’d like it. Just know Julie never gets better. Always an insufferable bitch. The Becky hate is 100% unnecessary, and Tyra and Tim? Spirit animals.”
Though my focus is on my phone as I open up my Netflix to double check it’s still there, as those sneaky bastards love to take stuff off in the middle of the night, I can feel his continued, uninterested gaze on me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You will once you watch it.”
“I’m not—”
“What else are we gonna do when we’re stuck on your nice ass but boring ass bus for hours?”
I will say that being on the road with him for almost a month now has taught me a lot. Informed mr of my ignorance in some areas, like how this shit is hard. We’re never in one place for too long, always on the go to the next thing. It’s like constantly and always being on. Including the man across from me.
I must say, while I still find him insufferable and struggle with daily (hourly) homicidal urges at it pertains to him, I can admit he takes great pride in what he does, often disappearing or staying in his locker room either alone or with the Wise Man as he prepares for promos and matches.
And the matches.
I’ll also be the first to admit I’ve always seen this wrestling shit as nothing but violent reality TV, a fabrication and depiction of the scripted and planned, and maybe it is, to a certain extent. But, there’s nothing fake about the sometimes nasty bruises, hematomas, and scars I’ve seen him walk out of the ring with following those violent encounters.
That shit hurts, and there’s nothing that can be scripted or fake about that.
It’s in thinking about said memories of him groaning loudly as he ices his sore body that makes me ask.
“What made you go into wrestling anyways?” I make a clicking sound with my teeth, shrugging while closing up the app. “I mean, if you played football for most of your life, why pivot?”
Except the minute I lift my head to look over at him, the confused, lost demeanor is traded for something else, another new discovery but also not. He looks irritated, yes, but….but something else.
Bothered.
He looks….bothered.
He doesn’t say anything else after that, and as someone who hates being ignored, it has me tempted to call him out on the shit. But, something….something tells me not to.
Something….something tells me that I’ve hit a nerve.
Welcome to Season one, episode one of my kinktober list. I would love to give you guys a 31 back to back fic series or even just random fics for this season but unfortunately School is whoopin my ass and Im 15 days too late so, here’s to my 10 - 15 episodes (hopefully.) Enjoy
Word count: 3.9k
paring: Elijah "Smoke" Moore x Harmony (OC)
Elijah had always been good at disappearing into the background.
He didn’t speak much, didn’t smile often, and never explained himself when people asked why he’d rather sit in silence than join in. Around the neighborhood, everyone called him Smoke; partly because of the haze that always clung to his name, partly because he was everywhere and nowhere all at once. You’d see him leaning on the corner post, hoodie up, eyes low — and when you blinked, he was gone.
But what no one knew was that Smoke had a favorite view in the whole city.
And her name was Harmony Reyes.
He knew her schedule better than she did.
He knew what time her bus dropped her off from work, what route she took walking home from class, what days she met her two friends — Maya and Charli — at the corner café for study sessions. He knew her favorite snack from the vending machine outside the library, Strawberry pop tart, and the soft hum she made when she was deep in thought.
He’d been watching her for months. Not out of malice, but because something about her made the world stop moving for him.
Harmony was quiet. Not the kind of quiet that begged for attention, but the kind that drew it anyway. She never tried to be noticed, and that’s what made her impossible for Elijah to look away from.
From his spot across the street, he’d watch her window glow at night. Sometimes, she’d be reading, sitting cross-legged on her bed, a blanket around her shoulders, her hair a curtain of boho braids that framed her face in soft waves. Sometimes, she’d be laughing on the phone, her smile too tender for the person on the other end to deserve it.
And when she cried — when he caught that glimpse of her wiping her face, chest heaving, Elijah would feel something dark twist in his chest. It wasn’t pity. It was possession.
Whoever made her cry, he wanted to break their face. Whoever touched her, he wanted to erase them.
He didn’t want to feel like this, but Harmony had crawled under his skin like smoke through cracks and there was no purging her out. He’d tell himself he was just keeping her safe. He’d tell himself he was just looking out for her. But deep down, he knew the truth.
He didn’t watch to protect.
He watched because he couldn’t stop.
One cool morning, Elijah leaned against his usual spot near the school’s parking lot, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes hidden behind dark shades. His brother Stack had gone off somewhere, probably to meet up with some girl which left Elijah free to linger.
That’s when he saw her. Harmony, walking up the sidewalk, her backpack hanging low, a small plastic bowl tucked against her chest. When her eyes lifted and found him, that bright little smile broke across her face and he swore he felt something tighten in his throat.
“Hey, Smoke!” Her voice was always soft but sure. Like she didn’t fear the weight of silence.
He gave her a single nod, lazy and unreadable. “Harmony.”
“You heading to class?” she asked, stopping in front of him. Her sweater sleeves were too long, and she kept tugging them over her hands. He found that adorable.
“Something like that,” he said.
Harmony smiled again, then extended the plastic bowl to him. “I made cookies last night. I figured you and your brother might like some. Chocolate chip. I remembered that’s what you said you liked last time.”
He blinked. She remembered that? “You ain’t have to do all that,” he murmured, his tone flat but the smallest smirk tugged at his mouth. “Appreciate it, though.”
Her cheeks warmed. “You’re welcome. You, um… still coming by the library later? I know Stack’s not much of a reader, but I promised to help you with that essay, remember?”
He tilted his head, studying her.
The way she tucked her braids behind her ear. The way her voice went soft when she said his name. She didn’t even know what she was doing to him.
“I remember,” he said lowly. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good,” she said, stepping back with that shy smile again. “See you after class.”
He watched her walk away; long enough to memorize the rhythm of her steps and the gentle swing of her bag.
When she disappeared into the crowd, Elijah exhaled and whispered under his breath, “You already mine. You just don’t know it yet.”
By the time he arrived, the library was quiet, golden light pouring through tall windows. Harmony sat at a table near the back, head bent over her notebook. Her braids spilled down one side, and he swore every strand that twisted with the curly extension gleamed like a secret.
She looked up when he approached.
“There you are,” she said warmly. “You’re late.”
“Had to take care of something.”
He slid into the chair across from her, keeping his voice even.
Harmony nudged the plate of cookies toward him. Another batch. “I made you more. Figured Stack ate majority of the first one.”
Elijah took one, bit into it, and let out a low hum. “You always make ‘em this good?”
She laughed. “It’s just cookies, Smoke.”
He shook his head, watching her fingers dance over the pages of her notes. “Nah. It’s you. You could make anything taste good.”
Her eyes darted up to his surprised, uncertain before she looked away, flustered. “You’re just saying that.”
“Am I?”
Harmony tried to focus on the book in front of her. “We’re supposed to be studying, remember?”
He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I’m studying.”
She frowned slightly. “What are you studying?”
His eyes dropped to her lips, then back to her eyes. “You.”
Her breath caught just for a second. Then she gave a nervous laugh, like she didn’t quite know what to do with his words. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Maybe,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “But I’m honest.”
She didn’t know what to make of him sometimes. Smoke wasn’t like the other guys in the neighborhood. The loud, charming ones who thought flirting was a sport. He was quieter, heavier somehow. When he looked at her, it felt like he was seeing through her, not just at her.
And yet… she liked him.
He’d helped her once when her bike chain snapped, walked her home when it got dark, and never once made her feel unsafe. Still, something about him was intense. There were moments, quick ones, when his eyes would darken, and she’d swear she felt him thinking things he’d never say aloud.
But she told herself not to overthink it. Smoke was just quiet. That was all.
Harmony always greeted him with a smile.
Not just any smile, either. It was the kind that lingered after she’d already turned away soft, polite, warm. Like she saw something in Smoke that no one else did. Like she didn’t know the weight of the name he carried.
But she did.
And that smile was part of the game.
“Morning, Smoke.”
Her voice floated toward him as she passed, braids swaying against her back, fresh and glistening under the sunlight. She had them styled in a half-up bun today, gold cuffs glinting between the twists. A matching brown and gold tote bag swung from her shoulder. She always looked put together, like she had somewhere to be and someone watching.
And he was always watching.
Elijah nodded once, lazy, unreadable. “You good?”
She grinned. “Better now that you’re not dodging me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Who said I was dodging?”
“I’ve got eyes too, you know.” She smiled again, teasing, then turned to walk backward a few steps. “You coming to the library later? You still owe me that essay rough draft.”
“I’ll be there,” he said.
“Bet.”
She spun around and kept walking. He stayed rooted to the spot, watching the sway of her hips, the stretch of brown skin beneath her cropped hoodie, the way the light hit her just right.
Everything about Harmony was soft. Easy. But that was just the surface. Smoke didn’t trust easy. Easy got you killed.
Still… he couldn’t stay away.
He tried, once.
Then he saw her laugh with some kid from her psych class, and it felt like someone gripped his chest and twisted. He’d never admitted it out loud — wouldn’t dare — but Harmony belonged to him. She just didn’t know it yet.
He saw her again that afternoon.
Only this time, she wasn’t smiling.
He was sitting on a ledge outside the gym, hoodie pulled low, joint unlit between his fingers. Just watching. Passing time. When he caught movement in his periphery, he turned — and there she was.
Running.
Tears spilled from her eyes like something had snapped inside her. Her steps were frantic, arms clutching her own body, breath coming in broken gasps.
She didn’t see him.
But when she bumped into him, she jolted hard and stumbled back, eyes wide.
“Harmony?” His voice was sharper now, alert. “What happened?”
“I—I’m fine.” Her voice cracked as she tried to tug herself free from his light grip.
“You don’t look fine.”
“I said I’m good,” she snapped, shaking her head and pushing past him.
Then she ran.
He stood there for two seconds. That was it.
Then he followed.
Not openly. Not like a normal person would. He moved through alleyways, cut corners, stayed three cars behind. Her house came into view, a small cream two-story tucked behind a high fence and a front yard full of dying sunflowers. She fumbled her key, then disappeared inside, door slamming shut behind her.
Smoke stayed across the street, tucked between two parked cars, just out of view.
He told himself he’d give her twenty minutes. Just to make sure she was alright. Just to know she was safe.
The key slid into the lock like it had done a dozen times before.
He stepped inside quietly. The house was still, lights low, the faint hum of her air purifier buzzing in the hallway. He knew where everything was — the kitchen, the tiny living room, the squeaky board by the stairs. He avoided it like muscle memory. He didn’t even think anymore.
He climbed the steps like a shadow, silent and focused.
Her door was cracked just enough.
She was there.
Curled into her sheets, hoodie still on, one bare leg tangled in the blanket. Her braids were messy now, falling across her face and pillow. She was turned away from the door, breathing heavy and slow, like the storm had passed and sleep had claimed her.
He stepped inside her room.
It smelled like lavender and cocoa butter and the faint sweetness of vanilla lotion. A candle had burned itself out on the windowsill. There were crystals on her dresser, books stacked against a pink lamp, a silk bonnet tossed on her chair. The details felt intimate. Sacred. Like he was stepping into her skin, not only her space.
Smoke walked to her bedside, slow and careful.
He watched her for a long time. Just stood there, eyes flicking over every curve, every breath.
She didn’t stir.
Didn’t move.
And still… he didn’t leave.
He stood by the edge of the bed, watching her back rise and fall. His breathing slowed to match hers. Something in his chest softened, curled in on itself, and he told himself again that this was just to make sure she was okay.
Even though he knew damn well it was a lie.
And it was all okay… until he heard the sound.
Click.
The sound snapped through the room like a gunshot.
Smoke froze.
The bedroom door had shut behind him. Not hard, not loud, but with purpose.
He turned slowly. It was closed. Fully.
His eyes narrowed.
And then… he heard something else.
A giggle.
Not a sleepy one. Not even slightly dazed; no, a delighted one.
That’s when she rolled over.
Eyes wide open and smiling. And this was not a regular smile. Not Harmony’s usual sweet grin or quiet curve of the lips.
This was teeth, all 32 showing into a slow menacing smile.
The smile gave away that her finding him in her room was something she expected… something she planned.
This was… planned.
“I knew it would work,” she whispered.
And then came her laugh, it wasn’t loud but it also wasn’t that low. This was a giddy soft laugh; one that seemed crazy if it were anyone else in the room.
Smoke’s body went rigid. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”
Harmony sat up, stretching lazily. Her braids fell over her shoulder, wild and beautiful. Her eyes glinted behind the sunlight slipping through the blinds.
“I’ve been waiting for you to break in for a while now,” she said, voice light like they were talking about the weather.
Smoke didn’t speak.
Couldn’t.
“I thought maybe the tears would bring you faster. And they did,” she added proudly. “Twenty minutes. I was almost impressed.”
Elijah’s jaw clenched. “You was… fakin’? That whole scene—”
“Was necessary,” she interrupted, sliding off the bed.
She walked toward him slowly, bare feet padding against the carpet.
“You don’t think I noticed you watching me all this time?” she asked, tilting her head. “You think I didn’t see the way you hovered on the corner when I got off work? Or how you always showed up at the library five minutes after I got there, but never from the front door?”
She was close now. Inches away.
“I knew what you were. What you wanted.”
He swallowed hard, voice tight. “Then why ain’t you say somethin’? Why you let me—”
“Because I wanted it,” she whispered, eyes soft and deadly. “I wanted you. I liked knowing you were always there. That I never had to ask you to care, because you already did. I liked the idea of being someone’s obsession.”
Smoke’s breath hitched.
This was not the Harmony he’d studied. Not the girl who blushed when he said something bold. Not the quiet, polite classmate who made cookies and offered library help.
This was someone else.
Someone who had seen him, all of him, and didn’t flinch.
Didn’t run.
No… she embraced it, so much so that she lured him in her room and locked him in.
Harmony reached out and gently brushed a finger across his chest. “I thought you were going to give all your attention to Riley and honestly? I would’ve gutted that bitch if you did.” she admitted. “I almost did.”
His brow tightened. “You saw me with her?”
“Of course,” she said with a small pout. “I see everything when it comes to you.”
He stared at her, hard. “You jealous?”
“I was furious,” she whispered. “But now you’re here. Where you belong.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and electric.
Harmony stepped back finally, curling up at the edge of her bed again. Her body relaxed, but her eyes stayed sharp.
“You can sit, Smoke,” she said sweetly. “You came all this way.”
He didn’t move.
Not yet.
Because everything in him was at war.
He wanted to run. Wanted to ask her what the hell kind of trap this was.
But another part of him, the real part, the dark one, was intrigued.
She knew. And still wanted him.
Maybe even the same way he wanted her.
No… worse.
Because now he realized something dangerous.
She hadn’t just welcomed his obsession. She’d matched it.
“You wanna sit down?” she asked softly, stepping back toward her bed. “Or you wanna keep standing there looking like you just saw a ghost?”
Smoke didn’t answer. His body was hot and tight, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
He wasn’t used to this.
He wasn’t used to being seen.
Especially not like this.
Harmony sat on the edge of the bed, watching him through heavy-lidded eyes. The same girl who had always smiled sweetly in the hallway. Who offered cookies and books. Who tucked her braids behind her ear with nervous laughter when he looked at her too long.
Now?
She looked like she wanted to devour him.
“Come here,” she said gently, patting the space beside her.
Smoke didn’t move.
Not because he didn’t want to — but because everything inside him was shifting too fast.
His entire obsession had been built on control. On keeping himself two steps ahead. He watched her, memorized her, predicted her.
But nothing about this moment had been predicted.
“You’re mine now,” she whispered.
A shiver ran through him.
“I know,” he murmured.
Harmony smiled. She realized that it would take a while for Smoke’s brain to catch up with the moment so she stood back up and walked towards him. The smile never leaving her face when she leaned in and then she kissed his jaw.
“I want to play,” she said softly.
Harmony’s hands flattened against his chest, and with one firm push, she guided him back onto the bed. Smoke didn’t resist. Didn’t speak. He just watched her with that same unreadable expression, jaw tight, chest rising and falling like a slow-burning fuse.
She dropped to her knees in front of him.
The shift in height didn’t make her smaller — it made her more powerful. More deliberate. Her fingers hooked the waistband of his sweats, dragging them down slowly, eyes never leaving his.
The air between them pulsed.
Harmony loved that smoke was on the same page as her. “I know” he had said to her claim over him, and still, she wanted to prove to him that she meant it, that she was devoted to him as much as he was to her.
Harmony watched with lustful eyes when his dick fell heavy and to the side. “Look how heavy it is. Just for me.” She whispered.
Their eyes locked for just a second, emotion swimming in their gaze towards each other before her gaze fell back onto his dick, hard and jumping under her stare. Harmony’s hand slowly up his leg like she was following a specific tune before her hand wrapped around him, feeling it throb in her hand before she leaned forward and pressed the kiss at the tip and engulfing him into her mouth.
She swirled her tongue around the tip before hollowing her cheeks and bobbing her head up and down.
Her hand following her mouth, twisting just slightly as she continued to bob her head up.
Smoke hissed, raising his hips and throwing his head back in pleasure. “Fuck.” he grunts and Harmony’s eyes drifted back to his face, watching in fascination. Elijah Moore, the same man that has people running in the opposite direction out of fear, was falling apart from her hands.
Air hisses through his teeth as she push herself a little farther, the tip of his dick hitting the back of her throat. Smoke’s fingers tangle in her hair as he softly sets a rhythm; hips lifting off the bed for a moment as he picks up his pace. And Harmony let him do whatever he wants, whatever he needs, while watching his every reaction in fascination.
A small moans leaves her mouth as the feeling of him, fucking into her mouth.
"That's it, baby," he breathes. "Open that throat for me. Fuck, you're doing so good."
The knowledge that she the one making Elijah lose control like this makes her pussy throb even more. Elijah giving into her the way he wants her to give into him turned her on more than she would’ve thought.
With each pump of his thick dick in her mouth, the tip of him hitting the back of her throat, caused tears to gather in her eyelids. Eventually she couldn’t fight them any longer, the tears from the pressure fell down her cheeks but Harmony didn’t make any move to stop.
In fact, her hand tightened around him and she tried to suck him just a little harder, matching the pace of his thrusts and the groans that Smoke let out were delicious, Harmony knew for a fact that she could come untouched just from his voice.
And she felt him throb in her hands, he was close, she could taste it but it wasn’t what she had planned. So she pulled herself off him, and stared at him in the face while she whispered seductively, "The only way you gon cum, is in me."
Eyes rolling to the back of her head when she slowly sat herself on him; the stretch feeling so damn good, Harmony almost blurted out her undying love for him. Now wasn’t the time.
“Gon head baby. Ride that shit.” He grunted in her ear in encouragement, sliding his hands against her waist to guide her.
Her head falling into the crook of his neck, moans slipping out of her mouth and melting into his skin, sending chills down his spine.
“Shit…Baby.” She breathed out.
Smoke’s hands moved from her waist to wrap them around her torso in an embrace. “Daddy making you feel good baby?” He asked, keeping his voice low.
Harmony could only moan in response, her arms moving to keep Elijah in her own embrace. She could feel her slick pooling in between their thighs, the slick slapping sounds of her ass bouncing against it ricocheted in the bedroom.
“Just like that daddy.” she whimpered into his ear, and for the first time since she’s locked him in here. Elijah felt that surge of energy to take over.
His feet planted onto the bed as he thrusted up into Harmony’s gummy walls. “Tell me it’s mine.”
“S’yours Elijah. All yours.” Harmony cried out, the moans kept slipping from her mouth cause she couldn’t hold it back. Not the way that dick was hitting her spot.
“Ouu fuck, you gon make me cum.” she cried out, and Smoke only grunts in response.
His pace didn’t change, couldn’t. The way she was squeezing him made him know that she was close, and Elijah wouldn’t miss this for the world.
Elijah had waited nine, maybe ten months for this. His mind was always wondering what she would look like if she fell apart for him and here she was, close to falling apart.
“Gon head baby.. Gimme that shit.”
“Fuck… Elijahhh.” she cried out and her eyes rolled back as she felt herself cum all over him, and the way she screamed his name only triggered his own release.
The two let their body sag, feeling boneless as they panted trying to catch their breath. But Smoke’s grip on Harmony didn’t loosen, if anything he held on tighter.
He leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “You mine now,” he whispered. “And not just ‘cause of what we did.”
Harmony shivered.
“You mine ‘cause your crazy match my crazy. ‘Cause you locked that door like you knew exactly how far I was willing to go for you. And now?”
His mouth brushed her neck.
“I’m gonna show you how far I’ll go to keep you.”
She exhaled shakily, fingers gripping his shoulders tighter.
“I want you obsessed,” he said.
“I am.”
And it was the truth. And the truth swallowed up the silence that was in the room because they both knew that they were obsessed with each other and now none of them are going anywhere.
😭 IDK HOW TO WRITE SHORT ANYMORE OH MY FUCKIN GOSH😭 I’m sorry this is so long. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.
Comment if you want to be on my kinktober list only, or if you want to be removed and kept for the main stories only.
From Now On I Will Not Be Writing For Roman Again. Now Because Of The Hard Work I’ve Put Into My Previous Works, I Will Keep Them On My Blog But I’m Taking The Masterlist Down. I’ll Still Write For Others Or Get Into The Feel Of Writing For Other Wrestlers. But I’ll Also Step Into Other Fandoms I’m Apart Of i.e Harry Potter, Bridgerton, The Originals.
But As A Black Woman With Two Small Kids Whose Future Depends On The Choices We Make Now.. I Can’t Support Someone Who Believes In This “President”
and while we are at it i need someone to point me in the direction of some good black reader stories / books / fics because im getting tired of having to use all my brain power to try and imagine myself in the readers shoes and the description of her leads me to know that she’s not black like HELP i’ve been reading since i was like such a young kid and ive had this problem for like a good 20 years now 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Shouting out some Black authors that write specifically for Black readers in mind. Mixed bag for fandoms though. This is off the dome, if I forget, I'm so so sorry 😘
Awe thank you @msklassickilla 🥹🤗. I gotta add my favs @msklassickilla ofc. @uceyliyahh @bookuce @whatdoeseverybodywant @sheaabuttaababyy @punksyeet @tribalhoochie im sorry if i forgot anyone
Aww love thank you for the mention 🥹❤️ @whowrotethenote you don't know how much it means to me, especially with being mentioned with all these amazing writers!
A/n: This is my first time writing for Jey 🙈 , I hope yall enjoy .
The bright lights of the arena shone down on the bustling backstage area, where the scent of sweat and adrenaline hung thick in the air. Wrestlers moved about with an air of confidence, their voices rising and falling in a medley of laughter, shouts, and playful banter. Yn leaned against a wall, her heart racing as she watched her best friend Jey across the room. He stood in a huddle with his fellow wrestlers, his laughter ringing out like a bell, clear and infectious.
C'mon, Uce! You really thought you could pull that move off?” Jey’s laughter echoed through the space, and a group of nearby wrestlers erupted in chuckles.
“Hey, it was a good idea!” another voice piped up, slightly defensive.
Yn rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. Six years of friendship, six years of watching Jey go through ups and downs—she thought she would have moved on by now, but there he was, just as charming as ever.
“Hey, Yn!” Jey called out, catching her gaze. He waved her over, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. “Come here, you gotta hear this!”
She pushed off the wall, forcing her feet to move. Each step felt heavier, the weight of her unspoken feelings dragging her down.
“What's up?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light.
“Tell them about that time you tried to do a moonsault and landed flat on your face!” Jey teased, grinning widely.
Yn felt her cheeks heat up. “I told you never to speak of that again!”
Jey laughed, the sound warming her insides. “But it’s too good! You were like—” he exaggerated the motion, flailing his arms. “Bam! Faceplant!”
“Shut up!” Yn laughed, half-heartedly shoving him. “I’m not a clown!”
“Maybe not, but you sure know how to make a spectacle!” he shot back, winking.
The camaraderie felt comfortable, but the underlying tension twisted her stomach. She watched Jey, who seemed to light up every room he entered. Yet, the shadow of his recent breakup lingered like a storm cloud. He hadn’t been the same since his girlfriend had cheated on him—a fact he loved to vent about whenever they were together.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Jey said, leaning in closer, the warmth of his body radiating against hers. “You wanna hit the gym later? Our usual late night session, I could use a spotter.”
“Sure, I’m down,” she replied, forcing a smile. The gym was their usual haunt, a place for sweat and laughter, but it often turned into another session of him lamenting over his ex. She wanted to be his comfort, but part of her yearned for him to see her as more than just a friend.
“Great! I’ll meet you there around six?” His enthusiasm was contagious, but she felt a pang of disappointment settle in her chest.
“Yeah, sounds good,” she said, trying to shake off the feeling.
As Jey returned to his friends, Yn felt a surge of frustration build up inside her. She had been patient, supportive, and always present. Yet, there she was, still in the shadow of his past. She turned away from the laughter, her mind racing.
After the show, the arena emptied, leaving behind a lingering buzz of excitement.
Yn made her way to the gym, her thoughts spinning. Jey was still hung up on his ex, and she was tired of being the shoulder he cried on. Honestly she should’ve came up with a reason not to come tonight, she doesn’t think she can take another late night session of Jey talking about the girl who did him wrong.
Every time she’s reminded that she’ll always be just the friend, and never more in Jeys eyes.
Lost in her thoughts she didn’t hear the doors to the gym open
“Hey!” Roman called out catching her off guard. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, then softened at his concerned gaze. “Just… thinking.”
“About Jey?” Roman crossed his arms, leaning against the wall casually, but his eyes were sharp.
“Isn’t it always about Jey?” she muttered, pacing the floor. “It’s like he can’t see what’s right in front of him.”
“Are you talking about yourself?” Roman asked, raising an eyebrow.
Yn stopped, her heart pounding. “What if I am? I mean, I’ve been by his side for years, and he still can't see me. He’s still stuck in the past, and I’m just... here.”
“Have you told him how you feel?” Roman inquired, his tone serious.
“No! I can’t just drop that on him. What if it ruins everything?”
“Or it could change everything,” he suggested, a hint of encouragement in his voice. “You’ve been carrying this for too long. You can’t keep waiting for him to figure it out.”
“Maybe I should just give up,” she sighed, frustration spilling over.
“Or maybe you should confront him. Stop keeping this a secret,” Roman urged, stepping closer. “You need to let him know you’re not just a friend.”
“Easy for you to say!” she shot back, her voice rising. “You’re not the one who’s been in love with your best friend for years!”
“Alright, I get it,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “But you’re stronger than this. Don’t let fear hold you back.”
“Fear? More like hopelessness,” she replied, crossing her arms.
“Face it. You two have a connection that goes beyond friendship. If you don’t tell him, you’ll regret it.”
The weight of his words sank in, and she sighed deeply. “You’re right. I need to talk to him.”
“Then do it. You got this.” Roman smiled, a glimmer of pride in his eyes.
“Thank you” Yn said as she got up to hug Roman, “You joining the workout session too?”
“Nah, I just got done, I was leaving when i saw you staring holes in the floor, just wanted to make sure you were good” Roman said hugging her back
“Always looking out” Yn said smiling, even though it didn’t quite reach her eyes
“If I don’t who will, but look Yn.. I’m serious, you have to rip the bandaid off and just tell him”
“I will” Yn said pushing Roman towards the door “Now go, you look like you could use some rest”
About 30 more minutes passed before Jey showed up, the clock ticked relentlessly, each second pushing her closer to the moment she had been avoiding.
She was about to change her mind, and leave, she’d figured she’d just text Jey telling her she wasn’t feeling well, when he finally walked through the door to the workout room
The door swung open, and he strolled in, his hair tousled, a grin plastered across his face.
“Yo mini Uce, I hope you ready because I’m not going easy this time.” Jey said dropping his bag next to some equipment not noticing Yns far off look
When he didn’t get Yns usual sarcastic response he looked her way finally
“Yo, you good”
Realizing it’s now or never Yn spoke up “Jey, can we talk?”
“Sure! What’s up?” He leaned against a wall, casual, but she could see the flicker of curiosity in his eyes. “You okay?”
“Jey, I—” she started, but the words stuck in her throat.
“C’mon, you know I’m all ears,” he encouraged, stepping closer.
“It’s just... I’ve been thinking,” she began, her courage wavering. “About you and... everything.”
“Everything?” He raised an eyebrow, his playful demeanor fading slightly.
“I’ve been thinking about… us. Our friendship,” she managed, her heart pounding wildly. “And I can’t keep pretending that I don’t have feelings for you.”
His expression shifted, surprise flickering in his eyes. “Feelings? What do you mean?”
“Jey, I’ve been in love with you for five years. Watching you date other girls while I stood by as your friend has been… excruciating.”
“Yn, I—”
“Let me finish!” she interrupted, her voice rising. “You have this amazing ability to make everyone around you feel special, and I thought if I just stayed close enough, you’d see me too. But you’re still hung up on your ex, and it’s driving me crazy! For five years, I’ve watched you pick other girls over me. I’ve been your friend because I thought that was enough, but it’s not. I love you, Jey. I’ve loved you for so long, and I can’t keep doing this to myself”
He looked taken aback, his brows furrowing. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Of course you didn’t! You’re too busy moping around about her to notice anything else!” she exclaimed, frustration spilling over.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I’ve been a bad friend,” he said, his tone softer. “It’s just been hard, you know?”
“I understand that, but you can’t keep holding on to the past. You’re missing out on something great right here!”
“I didn’t realize…” he trailed off, his eyes searching hers.
“Jey, you too suck on the past you can’t see that your future is right in front of you,” she said, her voice steadier now.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked, his expression shifting to something more serious.
“I want you to choose me,” she confessed, her heart racing. “I want to try being more than friends.”
He hesitated, his eyes searching hers as if looking for the truth. “I… I need time to process this.”
“Time?” she echoed, frustration rising again. “Jey, this isn’t a game! I’m tired of waiting!”
“I know! I just…” He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly conflicted. “You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose that.”
“But you could gain so much more,” she insisted, stepping closer. “It could be amazing if you’d just let go of your past.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
“Think about it?” She couldn’t help the incredulous tone. “Jey, I’ve been thinking about this for years!”
“I get it! I just need a moment,” he said, his voice rising slightly.
“Fine!” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Just know I’m not going to wait around forever.”
“Wait, Yn—”
“No! I’m done waiting for you to figure it out. I need to think about what’s best for me too!”
She stormed past him, her heart pounding with a mix of anger and disappointment.
“Yn, wait!” Jey called after her, but she didn’t stop. The door slammed behind her as she stepped into the night, the cool air hitting her like a wave. She needed to breathe, to think away from Jey’s confusion.
The stars twinkled above as she walked down the street, her mind racing. Maybe Roman was right; she couldn’t be stuck in limbo forever.
“Yn!” Jey’s voice broke through her thoughts, and she turned to see him jogging after her, concern etched on his face.
“Why are you following me?” she snapped, but the anger faded as she saw the worry in his eyes.
“Because I care,” he said, stopping a few feet away. “I don’t want you to feel like this.”
“Then what do you want?” she demanded, crossing her arms defensively.
“I want to understand,” he replied, his voice steady. “I don’t want to lose you. But I also don’t want to dive headfirst into something I’m not ready for.”
“Then what are you ready for?” she asked, her voice softening.
“I want to figure this out,” he admitted, stepping closer. “I don’t want to rush anything. You’re important to me.”
“Important, or more than a friend?” she pressed, searching his eyes.
“More than a friend,” he said, a hint of vulnerability in his voice. “I just need to know if I can be the guy you deserve.”
“Jey, you already are. But you have to choose to let go of that past first.”
He nodded slowly, the weight of her words sinking in. “Okay. I’ll try. For you.”
“Good,” she replied, feeling some of the tension ease. “Because I’m tired of being the backup plan.”
“I get it. I won’t let you down,” he promised, his voice firm.
“Then let’s take it slow,” she suggested, a small smile breaking through her earlier frustration.
“Slow sounds good. Just promise you won’t give up on me,” he said, a lopsided grin appearing.
“Deal,” she said, her heart lifting slightly.
As they stood there, the tension dissipating, Yn realized that maybe this was the start of something beautiful.
“Now, how about we go get some ice cream?” Jey suggested, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Ice cream? Is that your idea of a first date?” she teased, feeling lighter.
“Hey, it’s a classic!” he shot back, laughter bubbling between them.
“Is there even an Ice Cream place open at this hour?” Yn questioned
“Aye, I’m sure we’ll find something”
“Alright, lead the way, Uso,” she said, feeling the warmth of hope blossom inside her.
Together, they walked into the night, leaving the shadows of the past behind, ready to embrace whatever the future held.
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